So, let me guess: You’re perusing the Internet from a first world country. You live on more than $10 a day. You’ve got a bit of expendable cash in your wallet or bank account. If so, you’re in richest 20 per cent of the world’s population.

There are whole worlds of difference between the developing and the developed world. Nearly one billion people do not even have access to safe drinking water[1].

Of course, it isn’t as if nobody cares. In 2000, the United Nations set up a list of eight Millennium Development Goals, each designed to reduce the number of people suffering extreme poverty. One of these goals was to halve number of people without access to safe drinking water by 2015.

According to the World Health Organisation, the situation has improved since 2000, but it isn’t on track to meet its target. 13 per cent of the world’s population still doesn’t have access to safe drinking water[2].

Despite the fact that water is heavy and often need to be carried long distances in remote areas, women and children bear the brunt the burden. In many cultures, it is their job to carry the water. Fetching water is one of many long and arduous tasks that can limit the time available for things like education and recreation.

Worse still is the lack of access to sanitation facilities. An estimated 2.5 billion people worldwide lack access to adequate sanitation facilities, making sanitation the largest cause of infection[3]. Instead of raised flushing toilets, many counties use squat toilets, holes in the ground or simply resort to public excretion. Poor sanitation facilities invariably lead to a degradation of water quality, worsening the cycle of illness and poverty.

Even without improving anything else in the developing world, if access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities was improved, the number of deaths and illnesses would instantly drop.

About 88 per cent of diarrhoeal disease is caused by a poor water quality, inadequate sanitation facilities and a lack of hygiene. An estimated 50 per cent of hospitalisations worldwide are attributed to inferior water quality.

If all these people had access to a low cost water purification system like the SureAquaStraw, hundreds of lives could be saved every day.