In 1990, about 24 percent of the world’s people did not have regular access to relatively safe sources of drinking water.[241] Thanks to development efforts and advancing technology, the figure is now down to somewhere around 1 in 10.[242] That is still a large problem, however. According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, around 1.5 million people around the world, including 500,000 young children, died in 2019 from diarrheal disease—mostly via drinking water contaminated by the bacteria in feces.[243] These diseases include cholera, dysentery, and typhoid fever and are
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