SOUTHERN AFRICA:
Lack of Clean Groundwater a Health Threat
Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO , Oct 9 (IPS) - As the rainy season approaches, and sewage from pit latrines seep further into the Zimbabwe's groundwater, Irene Ngubeni will be at risk as the country faces another possible cholera outbreak.
Even now, just before the rains have started falling Ngubeni is ill. She has travelled the 170 kilometres from her village in Matebeleland North to Bulawayo for treatment after drinking contaminated groundwater.
The stomach cramps that plague her, she believes, are a result of drinking unclean groundwater. She suspects that even though the water she drank comes from the village borehole, it could have been contaminated.
"We do have a borehole in our village, but people always talk about the water being unsafe to drink," Ngubeni said, who comes from Lupane, in Matebeleland North.
"Villagers still use open spaces as latrines and yes there is a possibility that waste has found its way into our drinking water," she said.
But this is a reality she said she lives with everyday.
And this rainy season the country is at risk for another cholera outbreak, according to humanitarian agencies. Last year the waterborne disease claimed over 4,000 lives.
According to experts there are still millions of people living in rural Zimbabwe with no access to clean water and who are susceptible to waterborne diseases.
In this situation, however, Zimbabwe is not alone. Contaminated groundwater is a problem faced by many countries in southern Africa.
Only a few Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries are monitoring and properly managing groundwater, exposing millions of people living in rural areas with no access to clean water to waterborne diseases, experts say.
Up to 70 percent of Zimbabwe’s rural population and 90 percent in Swaziland rely on groundwater. But in the absence of proper monitoring of this vital resource, fecal matter from latrines that lie too close to boreholes has polluted people’s drinking water.
In some SADC areas groundwater is the only reliable water source with up 70 percent of the people and another 60 percent of the region’s poor rural communities using groundwater as their primary water source.
However, experts agree that with proper monitoring and mechanisms, the contamination of the groundwater can be avoided and at the same time save lives.
These reports come at a time when some humanitarian agencies, including the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent, say Zimbabwe faces another possible cholera outbreak as the rainy season approaches.
Management of underground water is crucial if its contamination is to be avoided says Barbara Lopi, a communications specialist with the SADC Groundwater and Drought Management Project.
"An example (of this) is Zimbabwe where the cholera outbreak emanated from contaminated groundwater from a borehole," Lopi said.
"Rural populations across the SADC region build their latrines near boreholes and this has helped spread diseases like cholera," Lopi told a seminar on Integrated Water Resources Management recently held in South Africa.
Access to clean water remains a problem that affects even urban populations across SADC as governments fail to replace poor infrastructure.
Burst sewers across Africa’s major cities has resulted in sewage seeping into water supplies meant for household use and further exposing urban populations to disease.
The failure by many SADC countries to adequately deal with groundwater management could fuel the potential outbreak of waterborne diseases, Lopi said.
These concerns come at a time when access to clean water remains a big issue with some humanitarian agencies saying many countries in sub-Sahara Africa will miss by a huge margin the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) that seeks to provide clean water for all by year 2015.
Sylvain Bertrand of OXFAM GB says groundwater is vital if SADC countries like Zimbabwe are to meet any of the MDGs.
"The alleviation of diseases and poverty can be tied to providing clean water to communities," Bertrand said.
"Water sources must be protected from outside contamination in particular fecal matter," Bertrand said.
According to the 2008 WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Report, less than 50 percent people in the SADC region have access to adequate sanitation, and rural communities are the hardest hit, making them extremely vulnerable to diseases such as cholera.
Early next year, SADC will set up the Groundwater Management Institute as part of efforts to respond to challenges presented by groundwater management in the region.
And the meantime Ngubeni and people in her village will have to be cautious about protecting their water supply. Currently, Ngubeni admits, they only become concerned when someone takes ill.
"It is when someone complains of stomach pains and diarrhoea that people start speculating about the cause because we do not boil the water."
(END/2009)
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