Typhoid outbreak prompts protests over inadequate water system
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《英国医生杂志》
A failure in the water delivery system in a small town near Johannesburg, Delmas, has caused a serious outbreak of typhoid fever. Three people are dead and more than 400 confirmed as having the disease.
Another 2500 have diarrhoea, which may be connected to the outbreak. These figures are expected to rise.
Nurses have been brought into the area from nearby Gauteng province. Freshwater is being bussed into the area by tanker and the government is now providing some 13 000 households with freshwater while solutions are found for the longer term.
The outbreak has prompted about 1000 angry young residents of Delmas to take to the streets to demand the resignation of the mayor and other municipal officials whom they blame for not seeing to it that drinkable water was available in the town. The town has had previous experiences of typhoid, having had a major outbreak in 1993 with 1000 cases of the disease. Residents believe more should have been done to prevent this second outbreak.
Others in a nearby township called Impumelelo burnt portable toilets to illustrate their point that the water and sewage systems were inadequate. In the past six months, scores of small towns throughout South Africa have had protests, at times violent ones, over inadequate delivery of services to them. Many of these residents use a "bucket system" to dispose of sewage as do some 231 000 households throughout the country.
As the week drew to a close with high profile visits from the ministers of health and of water affairs and forestry, new fears were being raised about the quality of water and sanitation given to the overcrowded, largely black townships on the outskirts of Pretoria as well as some of the towns to the east of Johannesburg and Pretoria.
Buyelwa Sonjica, the minister of water affairs and forestry, said that local government lacked the capacity to manage ground water, which her department would have to examine. Her cabinet colleague, health minister Manto Tshabalala Msimang, also pointed a finger at local authorities.
No doubt these departments will have to look at more than just Delmas because responsibility for the provision of water is in the process of being transferred from central government authorities to municipalities.
Officials have said that Delmas抯 water system, which relies on a system of boreholes from an underground source of water, has become contaminated with raw sewage because the sewage system is inadequate.
Many municipalities in South Africa do not have the equipment or ability to test water for purity. About 13% of South Africa抯 population does not have access to clean drinking water; this gave rise to a large cholera epidemic in another province two years ago.(Johannesburg Pat Sidley)
Another 2500 have diarrhoea, which may be connected to the outbreak. These figures are expected to rise.
Nurses have been brought into the area from nearby Gauteng province. Freshwater is being bussed into the area by tanker and the government is now providing some 13 000 households with freshwater while solutions are found for the longer term.
The outbreak has prompted about 1000 angry young residents of Delmas to take to the streets to demand the resignation of the mayor and other municipal officials whom they blame for not seeing to it that drinkable water was available in the town. The town has had previous experiences of typhoid, having had a major outbreak in 1993 with 1000 cases of the disease. Residents believe more should have been done to prevent this second outbreak.
Others in a nearby township called Impumelelo burnt portable toilets to illustrate their point that the water and sewage systems were inadequate. In the past six months, scores of small towns throughout South Africa have had protests, at times violent ones, over inadequate delivery of services to them. Many of these residents use a "bucket system" to dispose of sewage as do some 231 000 households throughout the country.
As the week drew to a close with high profile visits from the ministers of health and of water affairs and forestry, new fears were being raised about the quality of water and sanitation given to the overcrowded, largely black townships on the outskirts of Pretoria as well as some of the towns to the east of Johannesburg and Pretoria.
Buyelwa Sonjica, the minister of water affairs and forestry, said that local government lacked the capacity to manage ground water, which her department would have to examine. Her cabinet colleague, health minister Manto Tshabalala Msimang, also pointed a finger at local authorities.
No doubt these departments will have to look at more than just Delmas because responsibility for the provision of water is in the process of being transferred from central government authorities to municipalities.
Officials have said that Delmas抯 water system, which relies on a system of boreholes from an underground source of water, has become contaminated with raw sewage because the sewage system is inadequate.
Many municipalities in South Africa do not have the equipment or ability to test water for purity. About 13% of South Africa抯 population does not have access to clean drinking water; this gave rise to a large cholera epidemic in another province two years ago.(Johannesburg Pat Sidley)