Global group: Lack of toilets is fatal

SEOUL — Lack of proper toilet facilities and sanitation kills almost 2 million people a year, most of them children, the World Toilet Association said at its first meeting on Thursday.

"It is regrettable that the matter of defecation is not given as much attention as food or housing," Sim Jae-duck, the association's South Korean head, told the meeting at its recently opened lavatory-shaped headquarters south of Seoul.

The South Korean government has given strong backing to the World Toilet Association, which has been spearheaded by Sim, the parliament member known as "Mr. Toilet" for improving public restrooms for the 2002 World Cup as mayor of Suwon city.

Sim said some 2.6 billion people worldwide do not have access to proper toilet facilities, with potentially fatal consequences.

About 1.8 million people die every year from diarrheal diseases that are mainly blamed on inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene, the World Health Organization's regional director for the Western Pacific, Shigeru Omi, told the meeting.

The majority of these deaths occur in Asia and 90 percent of the fatalities are children younger than 5, he added.

"Just imagine the number of children whose lives could be saved through simple low-cost interventions in sanitation and hygiene," Omi told the meeting.

The United Nations has declared 2008 the "Year of Sanitation" and is calling for a renewed effort to improve sanitation and hygiene facilities, especially in developing countries.

The Seoul meeting, which brought together public-health officials from around the world and U.N. agencies, aims to raise funds for sanitation in developing countries.

"The restroom revolution will provide hope and happiness to mankind," Sim told delegates.

The group is not associated with the World Toilet Organization, another body that was founded in 2001 by Singapore's Jack Sim, has 44 member countries and similarly seeks to improve toilet sanitation in the third world.

South Korea's Sim, who has built a toilet-shaped house in his hometown, was unanimously elected Thursday as the new association's first president.

South Korea has sought to establish a "toilet culture" to improve restroom facilities for hosting international events. It now holds annual contests to select the most pleasant facilities.

Photos of winning restrooms displayed at the conference included lavatories featuring abundant natural light and plants, a boat-shape building in the city of Ansan and the bathrooms on a South Korean naval ship.

According to the United Nations, spending $10 billion a year could halve the proportion of people without basic toilet facilities by 2015, and Vanessa Tobin of U.N. children's agency UNICEF, said this investment would net an estimated $84 billion in savings from improved public health and better living conditions.