If you and your family get safe drinking water, consider yourselves fortunate. In India, millions struggle everyday to get clean, safe drinking water and fall prey to serious water-borne diseases.

Today, 80% of the diseases in the developing world are water-related^a. In India 800 million such diseases are reported every year, owing to contaminated drinking water.

Water gets contaminated in many ways – by harmful viruses, bacteria and parasites, all invisible to the naked eye. These micro-organisms find their way into water from faeces (1 gram of faeces can contain 10 million viruses, 1 million parasite cysts, and 100 worm eggs^b).

Sewage treatment in residential and industrial units may not be adequate – untreated human and industrial waste is often dumped into rivers and other water bodies, which cater to cities and villages. The situation worsens drastically in the monsoons.

Even though municipal corporations may chlorinate water adequately, contamination occurs as the water gets distributed to individual homes. Leaks in pipes (owing to unauthorized connections), unclean water tankers, unclean overhead tanks in buildings, contaminated taps and unhygienic storage may all lead to microbiological contamination.

The result? Dreaded diseases like hepatitis, jaundice, diarrhoea, typhoid, cholera, and gastroenteritis. These water-borne diseases wreak havoc as they cause long absences from work and school, loss of livelihood and in extreme cases, even death. Children especially, are the worst hit. Ask any concerned parent and he/she will tell you how these diseases affect children’s health, hinder academic growth, and drain the family’s resources.

Given the multiple sources of contamination, experts agree that the most efficient way of ensuring safe water is to purify water at your point of use. World Health Organisation (WHO) says that the provision of safe water alone will reduce diarrhoeal and enteric disease by up to 50%, even in the absence of improved sanitation or other hygiene measures^c.

So, play it safe by purifying your drinking water at home. Protect your family from water-borne diseases.

Do your children frequently miss school due sickness? Does your child feel lethargic? And is this happening despite your trying to ensure that they eat healthy, maintain hygiene and do not fall ill?

Perhaps you should take a closer look at the water your children and your family drink.

Symptoms like fatigue, weight loss, diarrhoea, fever, abdominal pain, cramps, nausea, vomiting and muscle aches are symptoms of water-borne diseases like gastroenteritis, jaundice, typhoid, gastroenteritis, jaundice, typhoid, hepatitis etc, to name a few.

One in five children is affected by a water-borne disease every fortnight, across socio-economic groups.

These deadly diseases interfere with the daily routine of children, hampering their academics and their extra curricular activities. Besides, if a child’s immune system suffers early on in life, he or she has lower resistance to serious ailments. This can affect their growth and development.

Drinking safe water can save your child from all these problems and assure him/her of a healthy future. So, what can you do as a responsible parent?

Do make efforts to choose the right in-home water purification system for your family.

Ensure that you purify your water at home to remove all invisible yet harmful bacteria, viruses and parasites. Store the purified water in clean vessels.

When outside, carry water from home where possible. Or else, at least ensure that your children do not consume water that is not purified.

Remember when your children always drink safe water, it saves them the agony of water-borne diseases, it saves you the sleepless nights and it saves on all those painful and expensive trips to the doctor!