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By German Reyes Tegucigalpa, Jun 16 (EFE).- Scarce rainfall in 2023 has affected thousands of campesinos in Honduras, where poor farmers suffer every year either from the impact of prolonged drought conditions in the summer or from flooding triggered by heavy rains. Many other rural dwellers, however, are faring better thanks to projects led by …
Healthier future
April 9, 2021
This World Health Day, our interconnectivity makes it more imperative than ever before that we ensure everyone on the planet has access to water and sanitation – for a safer and healthier future for all.
Before the pandemic hit, 40 percent of the world’s population already lacked access to basic hand-washing facilities at home, and children at almost half of the world’s schools did not have water and soap. While many governments have increased the provision of public hand-washing stations during the pandemic, the economic fallout of Covid-19 has only exacerbated what was already an urgent need in homes, schools, and healthcare facilities all over the world. In fact, the Covid-19 pandemic may contribute to the first increase in global poverty in more than 20 years, and by 2021, an additional 150 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty.
People wait to get water from a communal tap, during an outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Port-au-Prince, Haiti [Jeanty Junior Augustin/Reuters]
Ten years after the United Nations recognised water and sanitation as human rights, the world finds itself reeling from the devastating toll of COVID-19, a virus against which hand-washing and hygiene are the first lines of defence.
One of the most important lessons we learned from this pandemic is that we are only as healthy as the most vulnerable members of our societies, and today, huge sections of the global population are still being left behind in their access to water, sanitation and hygiene.