grown-up girls because of the risk of sexual attack, Ajara said. This World Toilet Day, international aid agencies are highlighting the particular risks to women of poor access to toilets. WaterAid says women are most vulnerable because they 're not only exposed to disease, but also have additional shame, harassment and risk of attack when they go out in the open. Sandimhia Renato in Mozambique described to WaterAid how she has to cross a very dangerous bridge every time she goes to the bush to defecate. I think it takes 15 minutes to get to the bridge, Renato says. I come here once a day, between 4 and 5 pm. At night it is very dangerous. People get killed. A woman and a boy were killed with knives. One woman I know of has been raped. But it's not just the shame and inconvenience of having no private place to go to the toilet, but a huge public health issue. When you consider that one gram of faeces can contain 10 million viruses, one million bacteria, one thousand parasite cysts and one hundred worm eggs -LRB- according to UNICEF -RRB- you can see why open defecation is so harmful to a community's health. Without a sewerage system to remove human waste and make it safe, cholera, typhoid and other infectious diseases spread quickly. The United Nations says more than 2.7 million people die each year due to lack of sanitation. With diarrhoeal diseases killing more young