6 In 10 Health Facilities Worldwide Fail To Meet Basic Sanitation Standards: WHO-UNICEF
· Free Press Journal
Only four in 10 health-care facilities worldwide met basic sanitation standards in 2025, while fewer than six in 10 met basic environmental cleaning standards, according to a World Health Organisation (WHO) and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) report released on Tuesday.
The report highlighted major gaps in water, sanitation, hygiene, environmental cleaning and waste management across health-care facilities, including patient rooms, wards, operating theatres, examination and treatment areas, and toilets.
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Titled Progress on Water, Sanitation, Hygiene, Environment Cleaning and Waste Management in Healthcare Facilities 2015-25, the report was released through the WHO-UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (JMP). For the first time, global estimates are available for all five basic service areas, including sanitation and environmental cleaning.
Sanitation Remains a Major Gap
In 2025, an estimated 85% of health-care facilities had basic water services, 72% had basic hygiene services and 71% had basic health-care waste management services. However, only 59% met basic environmental cleaning standards and just 40% met the requirements for basic sanitation.
“The findings show important progress but also expose major gaps in the foundations of safe, high-quality care,” said Bruce Gordon, Unit Head, Water, Sanitation and Health (WSH), WHO.
“Reliable water, accessible sanitation, hand hygiene, effective environmental cleaning and safe waste management must be integrated into health planning, financing and monitoring," Gordon said.
The report clarified that the remaining 60% of health-care facilities that failed to meet basic sanitation standards did not necessarily lack toilets. Globally, 89% had some form of sanitation and 85% had usable toilets.
To meet the basic sanitation standard, toilets must be improved and usable and cater to the needs of patients, staff, women and girls, and people with limited mobility.
Only about half of health-care facilities worldwide had separate toilets for men and women, accessible toilets or menstrual hygiene facilities. The absence of menstrual hygiene facilities and accessible toilets were the most common reasons facilities failed to meet the basic sanitation standard.
"A toilet is not enough if it is unsafe, inaccessible or does not meet the needs of women, girls and people with disabilities,” said Evariste Kouassi Komlan, Director of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), UNICEF.
“Without basic WASH services, health care facilities can pose serious risks to women during childbirth, newborns and young children. Safe, inclusive and dignified WASH services are essential to delivering quality care and protecting health."
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Environmental cleaning also remained a significant concern, with only 59% of facilities meeting the basic standard, which requires both cleaning protocols and trained cleaning staff.
Neither requirement was met by 18% of facilities, corresponding to facilities serving about 1.5 billion people. In the least developed countries, only 24% met the basic environmental cleaning standard.
Environmental cleaning is an important component of infection prevention and control as contaminated health-care environments can contribute to health-care-associated infections and the spread of antimicrobial resistance.
Between 2015 and 2025, global coverage of basic water, hygiene and waste management services improved, with hygiene recording the biggest increase. Despite the progress, around one in 10 health-care facilities still had no water service, while a similar proportion lacked sanitation services.
The number of countries with estimates covering all five services rose from 29 in the previous JMP update to 39 in 2025. However, significant data gaps remain, preventing the calculation of global trends for sanitation and environmental cleaning.
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UN Resolution Calls for Stronger Action
The report called on countries to strengthen routine monitoring and go beyond determining whether infrastructure is merely available. It said monitoring should increasingly assess reliability, safety, accessibility and cleanliness, along with whether services meet the needs of patients and health workers.
The findings come amid growing political momentum to improve water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services in health-care facilities.
In May 2026, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for stronger national standards, regular monitoring and reporting, and costed and financed plans for sustainable and resilient WASH, waste and electricity services.
The resolution recognises WHO and UNICEF as co-coordinators of global efforts and calls on them to continue supporting countries and expanding data coverage through the Joint Monitoring Programme.