A recent study by the World Bank and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) found that some 31 Filipinos, mostly children, die every day from diarrhoea due to poor sanitation and hygiene.

The report found that 27 million Filipinos do not have toilets and are at risk of ingesting human fecal material. A single gram of human waste can contain 10 million viruses, a million bacteria and a million parasite cysts, and once these enter the body they can cause bacterial infections such as dysentery, cholera, hepatitis A and typhoid.

The study went on to note that 13 million Filipinos do not have improved fresh water sources and only 3.3% of the households are connected to sewers leading to treatment facilities. Disturbingly, more than 95% of raw sewage in urban areas is deposited untreated into groundwater, canals and waterways, where it often contaminates drinking water supplies.