Ghana is ranked one of the dirtiest countries in the world by World health organisation (WHO) and United Nations children’s fund (UNICEF), organisations, urging Ghanaians to improve the situation to avoid epidemic outbreaks. 7,500 children die in Ghana each year because of dirty water. WHO and UNICEF joint sanitation report ranked Ghana as one of the dirtiest countries on Earth. In fact, Ghana named 7th most dirty country in the world in this report. As Ghana’s ranking is largely is in the hands of Ghanaians themselves very few of them wash their hands on the daily basis. The report reveals that only one in in eight Ghanaians wash their hands regularly. Poor hygiene contributes to the outbreaks of dangerous infectious diseases such as cholera.More than 7,500 Ghanaian children die from diarrhoea every year. This impressive death toll is caused by low quality of drinking water, poor hygiene and bad sanitation. Ghana’s access to household toilets is only 15%. It is one of the lowest sanitation coverage in the world. The situation with sanitation coverage is worse only in Sierra Leone, ranked 13%, Chad, Madagascar and Togo, ranked 12% each, Niger, ranked 11% and South Sudan, which has a 7% sanitation coverage. Even drinking bottled water in Ghana is not safe: every ten out in hundred bottles of drinking water produced in Ghana contain traces of faecal contamination, presenting a medium risk for health, while every hundredth bottle is contaminated with faeces so much that it represents high health risk.
