Drinking water in many rural areas is unhealthy, with 44.36 percent failing to meet government standards, a spokesman with the Ministry of Health said on Monday.
"The condition of drinking water in rural areas still has a long way to go to improve health conditions and living quality for rural people," Mao Qunan told a regular press conference.
"The health conditions of the drinking water and sanitary conditions for rural people still need improvement," he said.
The figures came from a national survey conducted jointly by the Ministry of Health and the National Committee for the Patriotic Public Health Campaign -- the first investigation into drinking water and sanitation conditions in rural areas.
Mao said that the unhealthy water led to outbreaks of diarrhea and other diseases, with 40.44 percent of surface water and 45.94 percent of ground water below the regulatory standards released in2006.
Mao said that in the countryside, 74.87 percent of people drank water from underground sources, while the rest drank surface water. He blamed unhealthy water on microbial contamination.
"Most people living in rural areas do not have their drinking water sterilized, and often they just drink the well water, which may have been polluted," the spokesman said.
Sanitation was somewhat better in more densely populated areas, with 85.23 percent of people living in villages or counties often having their water boiled before drinking. This practice lowered the chances of contracting a serious enteric infectious disease, Mao added.
The survey, from August 2006 to November 2007, collected nearly7,000 samples from 65,839 homes in 6,590 villages, covering 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities.
Besides water conditions, the survey also covered rural environmental sanitation conditions. The results were not encouraging.
The survey found that a lack of sanitary toilets had caused great inconvenience in rural areas, where only 23.83 percent rural families built sanitary toilets (those with special disinfecting facilities). In such areas, most toilets were self-constructed, being built inside or outside the courtyard.
Even worse, 90.04 percent of people used manure from these unsanitary toilets as fertilizers. "Using untreated manure as fertilizers will increase the risk of diseases spreading and devastate the health environment of rural areas," Mao noted.
Also, he said, the daily garbage volume per capita in rural areas had reached 0.86 kilogram, and the annual garbage volume of all rural areas across the country had approached 300 million tons. Much of this refuse was disposed of randomly, which caused serious pollution.
Source: Xinhua
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