Infectious diseases related to water in Peru

© 2018, Instituto Nacional de Salud. All rights reserved. The growth of the world population has increased the demand for water. On the other hand, climate change shows us that the water sources that were previously safe are not anymore. There are inequalities between urban and rural areas, thus 96% of the urban world population uses drinking water sources compared to 84% of the rural population, while 82% of the urban population versus 51% of the rural population use sanitation facilities. In Peru, 80.4% of homes are supplied with water through a public network. In the urban area, this service covers 83.2%; while in the rural area 71.3% of homes have a toilet service connected to the public network. All the above conditions the presence of water-related infectious diseases, such as diarrhea, malaria, dengue, leptospirosis, viral hepatitis A, and E, whose classification is shown in this article. In the world, diarrhea is the third cause of death among children under five years of age and more than 340,000 children under the age of five die from diarrheal diseases due to poor sanitation. One of the goals of the SDGs is related to universal access drinking water, sanitation and hygiene, which cannot be achieved without due attention to the inequalities in access observed between different groups, avoiding the consequences of these deficiencies both in our country and in the world.