WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- The United Nations Children's Fund and the World Health Organization released a report called "Diarrhea: Why Children Are Still Dying and What Can Be Done." The report outlines an aggressive seven-point plan for preventing and treating diarrhea.

WHO states that 88 percent of diarrhea cases worldwide are caused by unsafe water, inadequate sanitation or insufficient hygiene.

Related to this report, a coalition of U.S. public and private organizations, including AED, Global Water Challenge, the Institute for OneWorld Health, method, Millennium Water Alliance, PATH, PSI, the U.S. Coalition for Child Survival, U.S. Fund for UNICEF and WaterAid America came together to raise awareness of Global Handwashing Day, Oct. 15. Hand washing with soap and water is an effective method for preventing diarrhea, reducing incidence up to 40 percent.

Diarrhea is the second biggest killer of children in the developing world, accounting for 1.5 million child deaths annually -- almost three times the population of Washington.

In response to this staggering statistic and the billions of lives that are affected by diarrhea illnesses, UNICEF, WHO and a number of health and water and sanitation organizations are calling for increased international attention and funding for prevention and treatment. One of the most critical and sustainable elements of preventing diarrhea is increasing access to safe drinking water and sanitation.

"Water and sanitation, which are also part of the Millennium Development Goal, number 7, is so inextricably linked to the nutrition issues, the diarrhea issues and the child mortality issues, and you need to focus on all of these issues," said Ann Veneman, UNICEF's executive director. "Of course UNICEF has been working in the areas of clean water and sanitation for a number of years, and it is critical to accelerate that progress."

However, current funding for sanitation programs is painfully low. Earlier this year, WaterAid reported that less than $2 billion in global health financing is going to sanitation programs. The United Nation's International Year of Sanitation Web site says that $10 billion in funding is needed per year to meet the MDG for sanitation.

Preventing and treating diarrhea are directly connected to two of the MDGs, number 4, reducing child mortality; and number 7, reducing the number of people without access to safe drinking water and sanitation. Properly addressing the scourge of diarrhea and the suffering it causes among children and adults is absolutely fundamental to achieving all of the MDGs. Repeated bouts of diarrhea hinder nutrition and cognitive development, keep children out of school and keep adults from productive activities like farming and business.

What’s perhaps most unfortunate about the entire diarrhea problem is that it is almost completely solvable. A global lack of political will is one of the reasons more isn’t being done.

Even a Google search offers an inadvertent but telling understatement of the diarrhea problem's gravity. Type in “4 billion cases of diarrhea” (the actual number of annual cases of diarrhea). In response, Google will ask you “Did you mean: four million cases of diarrhea?”

As John Oldfield of Water Advocates points out: "Diarrhea doesn’t have to be something that kills people. For all of us in richer countries it’s just a result of bad takeout food. It's time to take the die out of diarrhea."

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