Read the passage and answer the following questions.
In 2019, WHO and UNICEF published the latest figures on clean water and sanitation in the world. The figures were for the year 2017. More than 785 million people did not have even basic water services. The share of people using safely managed drinking water had gone up from 61% in 2000 to 71%. Over 3 billion people used safely managed sanitation services, but 673 million still practised open defecation. About 3 billion people had no proper facilities to wash their hands safely at home. Where schools lack toilets, girls who reach puberty are more likely to miss school than boys.
Millions of people suffer from neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) such as Guinea worm disease, trachoma and schistosomiasis. Many of these diseases are linked to water or hygiene. They are found most often in places with unsafe drinking water, poor sanitation and poor hygiene. Unsafe drinking water contributed to 72% of deaths from diarrhoea, and unsafe sanitation to about 56%.
Water, sanitation and hygiene could prevent at least 9% of the world’s disease burden and 6% of all deaths. In the U.S., money spent on water filtration and chlorination in the first half of the 20th century is estimated to have brought back 23 times its value in public health. Water and sanitation interventions are cost-effective in every region of the world.
The United Nations aims to give every person basic and safely managed water and sanitation by 2030. To meet this goal, an estimated 2.2 billion people still need safely managed drinking water, 4.2 billion need safely managed sanitation and 3 billion need basic handwashing facilities.
Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage as a way to prevent disease?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → Vaccination
The passage says that “Water, sanitation and hygiene could prevent at least 9% of the world’s disease burden”.
- It names three ways to prevent disease.
- Vaccination means giving a vaccine, often an injection, to protect a person from a disease. The passage never mentions it.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: Safe drinking water — Incorrect. True in the passage: Unsafe drinking water “contributed to 72% of deaths from diarrhoea”. So safe water prevents disease.
Option 2: Proper sanitation — Incorrect. True in the passage: Sanitation means the safe removal of human waste, as with toilets. The passage names it among the three ways.
Option 3: Hygiene, such as washing hands — Incorrect. True in the passage: Hygiene means keeping yourself clean. It is the third of the three ways the passage names.