Sri Lanka, Aug. 26 -- More than two billion people worldwide still lack access to safely-managed drinking water, the United Nations said on Tuesday (Aug 26), warning that progress towards universal coverage was moving nowhere near quickly enough.

The UN's health and children's agencies said a full one in four people globally were without access to safely-managed drinking water last year, with over 100 million people remaining reliant on drinking surface water - for example from rivers, ponds and canals.

The World Health Organization and UNICEF said lagging water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services were leaving billions at greater risk of disease.

They said in a joint study that the world remains far off track to reach a target of a...