Abstract
Safe drinking water is essential to good health. However, in resource-poor settings, water often comes from unsafe sources and carries deadly pathogens. The World Health Organization estimates that 1.1 billion people lack access to improved water supplies, and 1.8 million people—nearly 5,000 children a day—die each year from preventable diarrheal diseases; many of these deaths are attributed to unsafe water.
Various products exist today to treat and safely store water. Yet, according to international experts, less than 1 percent of those without access to improved water supplies are being reached with current efforts to promote household water treatment and storage (HWTS). Clearly, the scale of the problem is far beyond what current efforts can handle.
