Insufficient water for washing is likely to worsen the coronavirus in the poorest nations. There’s a better way forward.

By Alan Nicol | May 12, 2020, 3:44 PM Foreign Policy

Days after he shared images of municipal workers disinfecting the streets of Addis Ababa with high-powered hoses, Mayor Takele Uma Banti found himself struggling to explain a 72-hour water shortage.

For the 4.8 million residents of Ethiopia’s capital city, interruptions to the water supply are nothing new. But in the grip of a pandemic, the latest disruption threw into sharp relief the inequality created by limited and unpredictable access to clean water. Without a treatment or a vaccine, the primary advice to prevent the spread of the coronavirus is regular hand-washing and good hygiene. But this is out of reach for millions of Ethiopians living without sustainable access to clean water, laying bare the critical link between water and public health.

Water crises were ranked above both infectious diseases and food crises in the World Economic Forum’s latest Global Risks Report. This year, the world is likely to see all three.

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