Lack of water at health facilities hit 2b people, fuelling superbugs

LONDON: A quarter of the world’s health facilities lack basic water services, impacting two billion people, said the United Nations yesterday, warning that unhygienic conditions could fuel the global rise of deadly superbugs.

In the poorest countries, about half of facilities do not have basic water services — meaning water delivered by pipes or boreholes that protect it from faeces — putting birthing mothers and newborns in particular danger, new data showed.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) and UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) said more than one million deaths a year were associated with unclean births, and 15 per cent of patients attending a health facility developed infections.

“Hospitals are not necessarily points of care where you can heal, but points of almost infection. We are very alarmed by this,” said WHO public health co-ordinator Bruce Gordon.

Worldwide, nearly 900 million people had no water at all at their local health facility or had to use unprotected wells or springs. One in five facilities also lack toilets, impacting about 1.5 billion people, said the agencies.

One of the development goals agreed by world leaders in 2015 was for all to have access to safe water and sanitation by 2030.

“A healthcare facility without water is not really a healthcare facility,” said Unicef statistician Tom Slaymaker.

“Sick people shed a lot more pathogens in their faeces, and without toilets, staff, patients — this includes mothers and babies — are at a much greater risk of diseases caused and spread through human waste.”

The agencies said good water and sanitation services were crucial to reducing the spread of antimicrobial resistance, one of the greatest global health threats.

International charity WaterAid said rising rates of superbugs had been linked to poor sanitary conditions in health facilities, which led to the overuse and misuse of antibiotics.