More than two-thirds of households drink bacterially contaminated water and, every year, 53,000 Pakistani children die of diarrhoea after drinking it, according to the UNICEF.
Barely 15 days old, Kinza whimpers at an Islamabad hospital where she is suffering from diarrhoea and a blood infection, a tiny victim among thousands afflicted by Pakistan’s severely polluted and decreasing water supplies.
Cloaked in a colourful blanket, Kinza moves in slow motion, like a small doll. Her mother, Sartaj, does not understand how her daughter became so ill.
“Each time I give her the bottle, I boil the water,” she tells AFP. But Sartaj and her family drink daily from a stream in their Islamabad neighbourhood — one of several waterways running through the capital that are choked with filth. Boiling the water can only do so much.
They are not alone. More than two-thirds of households drink bacterially contaminated water and, every year, 53,000 Pakistani children die of diarrhoea after drinking it, says UNICEF. Cases of typhoid, cholera, dysentery and hepatitis are rampant. According to the UN and Pakistani authorities, between 30 and 40 percent of diseases and deaths nationwide are linked to poor water quality.
And it is costing the developing country billions. In 2012 the World Bank, which has warned that “substantial investments are needed to improve sanitation”, estimated that water pollution costs Pakistan $5.7 billion, or nearly four percent of GDP.