Durban: The Department of Water and Sanitation is urging municipalities to conduct tests on drinking water following a breakout of typhoid fever in parts of the country.
Department spokesperson Sputnik Ratau said they had been inundated with queries regarding the quality of drinking water following news of the outbreak.
He said various municipalities in affected areas needed to conduct the necessary analysis on the status of drinking water quality in their respective areas, particularly related to potential enteric (typhoid) infections, whether or not gastro-related cases had been reported.
"We urge municipalities to communicate regularly with the communities that they serve, to prevent misinformation being peddled on social media. The National Institute for Communicable Diseases has also set out some guidelines that we need to follow to ensure safety of communities," Ratau said.
Last week, the NICD announced an outbreak of Typhoid fever in the Western Cape and the North West provinces.
The NICD said there was no evidence that the outbreak was linked to contaminated municipal water in any part of the country, and there was no evidence that the bacteria causing typhoid fever had recently been identified in municipal water sources anywhere in the country.
The eThekwini Municipality has confirmed that its water is not contaminated.
"The public should note that this misleading message is faceless, which proves that the author’s intention is to create unnecessary panic to the public," the municipality said.
Cape Town mayoral committee member for water and sanitation Zahid Badroodien said all drinking water samples tested this week complied with the South African National Drinking Water Standard on Acute Health Determinants and posed no health risk to the public.
Safety measures to follow:
- Hand hygiene. Wash hands with soap and safe water.
- Wash hands before, during and after preparing food.
- Wash hands before and after eating food.
- Wash hands before and after caring for someone at home who is sick (especially if they have diarrhoea or vomiting).
- Wash hands after using the toilet.
- Wash hands after changing nappies or cleaning up a child who has used the toilet.
Food safety practice:
- Follow the World Health Organization’s five keys to safer food: keep clean; separate raw and cooked; cook thoroughly; keep food at safe temperatures, and use safe water and raw materials. Washing hands with soap and water before, during and after preparing food and before eating, is especially important.
- Using safe water. When there is concern about the quality of water you are using for drinking and cooking, it is recommended to treat the water first by boiling it (place water in a clean container and bring to a boil for 1 minute) or treating it with household bleach (add 1 teaspoon of household bleach (containing 5% chlorine) to 20-25 litres of water, mix well and leave it to stand for at least 30 minutes
IOL