IPS news reports appear daily in English, German, Finnish, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish. The burden of most of these preventable, environmentally-related illnesses are borne disproportionately by the poor living in both developing and developing countries. One-fifth of the world's populations considered the ''poorest poor'' who live on less than one dollar a day are especially vulnerable to infectious diseases and degrade local environments. Many environmental health problems are associated with poverty and lack of clean water, food, shelter, fuel and air. Inadequate access to clean water and sanitation and inadequate garbage collection and disposal causes millions of infectious diseases and deaths in developing countries each year - mostly in Africa and Asia.
Children are especially vulnerable to environmentally related disease and illness, says the report.
And about three million children die each year from diarrhea, related to inadequate water and sanitation. Children also suffer from brain and kidney damage from exposure to leaded paint and to lead emitted into the air by gasoline. In rapidly developing countries, such as China and Brazil, people face both inadequate water and sanitation and the emerging health threats from industrial pollution. In China, for example, much of the limited ground water is contaminated by both human wastes and industrial pollutants, according to government reports. Although risks may be most severe in developing countries, they have by no means disappeared in industrialised countries, such as those in North America and Europe.