New Delhi -
Serious gaps in funding, especially in rural areas, is holding back progress in providing universal access to water and sanitation, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Wednesday.
It cited a recent report including data from 94 countries to analyse challenges in water systems, sanitation and hygiene.
An estimated 2.5 billion men, women and children around the world lack access to basic sanitation services, of which 792 million live in India, it said.
About 1 billion people continue to practice open defecation.
An additional 748 million people do not have ready access to an improved source of drinking water, according to the report.
“Water and sanitation are essential to human health. Political commitment to ensure universal access to these vital services is at an all-time high,” said Maria Neira, director of WHO's department of public health and the environment.
“International aid for the sector is on the rise. But we continue to see major financial gaps at the country level, particularly in rural areas.”
WHO's South-East Asia region, including India, is home to a bulk of those who lack access to sanitation facilities, regional director Poonam Khetrapal Singh said.
But there has been improvement over the past two decades.
The proportion of people with access to toilets rose from 25 percent of the region's population in 1990 to 45 percent in 2012.
The WHO estimated that in 2012 in the South-East Asia region 123 300 diarrhoea deaths were caused by inadequate sanitation and 131 500 by inadequate hand-washing practices.
The region covers Bangladesh, Bhutan, North Korea, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor-Leste.
November 19 has been designated as World Toilet Day by the United Nations. - Sapa-dpa