Rural water supply and sanitation in China

The majority of the Chinese population lives in rural areas; based on statistics from the end of 1999 they account for 9.54 hundred million people, or 75.7% of the whole population of China. This means that the improvement of the water supply and sanitation in rural areas is an issue of fundamental importance. Improvements in water supply and sanitation in rural areas are targets for the government programmes ‘Health For All by the year 2000’ and the ‘National Programme of Action for Child’s Development in 1990s (NPA)’. They are also an important part of government disease control initiatives undertaken to prevent the spread of infectious intestinal diseases.