So. Africa: River water tested after eight die..not cholera

[Shiloh]

Source: http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?s...1915143C631531

River water tested after eight die

June 08 2009 at 04:59PM

Water samples from a river in the Eastern Cape have been sent for analysis following the death of eight people in Mpheko village, the Department of Water Affairs said on Monday.

"The department is conducting a full investigation and has already collected water samples from the traditional water sources in the area namely Mpheko River and Phantsi Kwentaba Spring.

"The results are expected to be released on Wednesday," said spokesperson Sputnik Ratau.

Eight people in the Mpheko village near Mthatha were reported to have died after suffering from diarrhoea and vomiting.

'I can confirm that it's not cholera, because you can't have it in winter'
It was suspected the deaths, which occurred in the past few weeks, were caused by drinking polluted water. Eastern Cape health spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said there was no cholera outbreak in the area.


Ratau said departmental officials had been dispatched to the area and were working closely with the villagers.

"The department will co-ordinate its efforts closely with the provincial department of health and the OR Tambo District Municipality as the water service authority in the area..." - Sapa

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Re: So. Africa: River water tested after eight die..not cholera

Sounds like a poison in the water. Here is an earlier article.

http://www.sabcnews.com/portal/site/...nnelPath=South Africa >> Health

Three killed in E Cape shortly after eating a meal June 07 2009 , 11:44:00



Three men in their forties have died at Mpheko village, west of Mthatha in the Eastern Cape. Community members suspect they ate meals prepared with contaminated water.

The men died within hours of each other. A fourth man is in hospital. Taps in the village started running dry weeks ago and many people are dependent on rivers.

Provincial Health Department spokesperson Sizwe Khuphelo, says community leaders or the local clinic should have reported the unusual deaths immediately so that a post-morterm could have been performed.

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Re: So. Africa: River water tested after eight die..not cholera

http://www.dispatch.co.za/article.aspx?id=321693

State scrambles over water deaths

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2009/06/09
GOVERNMENT says it is pulling out all stops to prevent further deaths from contaminated water in a Transkei village where the death toll has already reached eight.


Sizwe Kupelo, spokesperson for the provincial Department of Health, yesterday said officials had been sent to the stricken village of Mpheko near Mthatha .
?Our officials are in the village and are distributing chlorine.
?On Wednesday there will be an imbizo to educate the villagers on how to use chlorine,? he said.

Kupelo said tests confirmed that water drunk by the villagers had been contaminated with faeces.
Yesterday four people had been treated at Mpheko clinic for diarrhoea and vomiting, while 32 were treated in May .

Meanwhile, Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs Buyelwa Sonjica yesterday expressed her condolences to the families of those who died, and said her department had also sent officials to the area .
OR Tambo District Municipality met yesterday to discuss the situation and sent fresh water supplies . - By LUBABALO NGCUKANA
Mthatha Bureau

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Re: So. Africa: River water tested after eight die..not cholera

And not waterborne at all. South Africa has excellent labs (they discovered the Lujo virus within a week). I wonder why they can't determine a cause on this one.

http://www.sabcnews.com/portal/site/SABCNews/menuitem.5c4f8fe7ee929f602ea12ea1674daeb9/?vgnextoid=a664228338dc1210VgnVCM10000077d4ea9bRCRD&vgnextfmt=default&channelPath=South%20Africa%20%3E%3E%20Health

Tests on the water samples taken at Mpheko village outside Mthatha in the Eastern Cape have shown no traces of cholera, typhoid or any water borne disease. This comes after the death of eight people at the village over the weekend, allegedly after drinking water from the nearby river.

Health Department spokesperson, Sizwe Kupelo, says the deaths have nothing to do with the water. He says a task team will now investigate what could have led to these deaths. The O.R Tambo District Municipality has meanwhile restored water to the village. The village had been without water since December last year. Residents mainly depend on springs and dams for drinking water.

Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs Buyelwa Sonjica had said initial results were not conclusive that the deaths were related to water bourne diseases. “That is why we have decided to continue with the investigation, taking it further to do autopsies on the dead people. The community blames the local municipality for the water supply problems. "I have decided to run with my children from Mpheko, my home village. I see people dying but when I arrived at Luthuli there is also no water and now I don't know what to do," said a community member.

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Re: So. Africa: River water tested after eight die..not cholera

And a government press release:

http://www.ecdoh.gov.za/files/dynamic_pdf/14062009173723.pdf

Team set to probe Transkei deaths
• Credits or Article Source: sapa/ecdoh
• Posted On: 09 June 2009
A team of investigators including an epidemiologist has been set up to probe the deaths of eight men
from Mpheko village in Transkei, the Eastern Cape health department said on Tuesday.
Spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said though there were claims that the men had died from waterborne
disease, it appeared unlikely that this was indeed the case. He said Water Minister Buyelwa Sonjica and
Eastern Cape health MEC Pumulo Masualle met in Mthatha on Tuesday morning.
They had agreed that a task team be set up, and that it be given a week to report on its investigations.
It would include two specialist family medicine doctors, an epidemiologist from Walter Sisulu University,
and health, environmental, water affairs and municipal officials.
Kupelo said an analysis would be done of the 32 diarrhoea cases treated at the Mpheko clinic in April
and May. "What remains strange at this stage is that all the deceased were men," he said. "When you
have an outbreak, you will have women and children being the most vulnerable."
He said samples taken from natural water sources near the village last week indicated faecal
contamination, but this was unlikely to lead to fatalities. In addition, it was too cold for cholera to make
an appearance.
Municipal workers had this week repaired the village's supply of treated water, which had reportedly
been non-functional since December.
The department will hold an imbizo at the village on Wednesday to raise awareness around clean
drinking water and hygiene.

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Re: So. Africa: River water tested after eight die..not cholera

http://blogs.dispatch.co.za/dispatchnow/2009/06/09/village-deaths-not-waterborne-minister/

The Minister of Water and Environmental said there was no “conclusive evidence” that the deaths at a village near Mthatha were caused by waterborne diseases, writes Lubabalo Ngcukana. Minister Buyelwa Sonjica visited the area on Tuesday after at least five people died after allegedly drinking contaminated water at Mpheko Village.
“The initial results are not conclusive that the deaths are related to waterborne diseases that is why we decided to continue with the investigation,” Sonjica said, adding that autopsies would be done to determine the cause of death.

She said the department would leave ”no stone would be left unturned”.

In the meantime, chlorine has been distributed to schools, the local clinic and residents. Health MEC Phumulo Masualle also addressed an imbizo in the area regarding the deaths.

OR Tambo District Municipality mayor Zoleka Capa said there had been about three conflicting reports about the number of deaths, with one saying five had died, while others said eight and 10.

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Re: So. Africa: River water tested after eight die..not cholera

I think we need to change the title of this thread, as water is not involved. All men does suggest an occupational exposure, but the relatively high fatality rate (8 out of 32) among adult men from diarrhea is unusual. Notably, I don't think fever was a mentioned symptom, and the time from onset to death appeared to be just hours.

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Re: So. Africa: River water tested after eight die..not cholera

An earlier source that mentions one of the deaths is an 8yr old child, contradicting the "all adult men" idea. Note also the alternative spelling, Mfeko, as opposed to Mpheko.

http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1013977

Polluted water kills five villagers
Sapa Published:Jun 08, 2009

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FIVE people have died at Mfeko village, Mthatha, after drinking polluted water, the Eastern Cape health department said yesterday.



Spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said: "Five people, including an eight-year-old child, died after a short illness.
“All those who died displayed similar symptoms: vomiting, diarrhoea and stomach cramps,” ward councillor Nomakholwa Mahashe said.
Yesterday, the OR Tambo municipality and the health department dispatched two trucks to supply residents with clean water.
The department also distributed water purification chemicals to each house hold in the village.

Kupelo said there was little chance that the water was infected with cholera and the cause of the contamination was being investigated.
Last month, at least 32 villagers were treated at the local clinic, suffering from the same symptoms.
Villagers claimed they became sick when they drank water from a nearby river when their taps ran dry in December. It is not known why the village ran out of water.
The health department would contact other government departments and the municipality to help those affected, Kupelo said.

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Re: So. Africa: River water tested after eight die..not cholera

He said samples taken from natural water sources near the village last week indicated faecal
contamination, but this was unlikely to lead to fatalities.

Fecal contamination in the water and Vomiting and diarrhea along with stomach cramps sounds like E-coli, or food poisoning.

-Charlie Johnson

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Re: So. Africa: River water tested after eight die..not cholera

Fecal contamination in the water and Vomiting and diarrhea along with stomach cramps sounds like E-coli, or food poisoning.

-Charlie Johnson

Something like that. E-coli and salmonella are definitely good differential diagnoses here. Parasitic infections are also possible, as well as chemical or toxin-related illnesses. The water is still the leading cause of this illness, even if cholera is ruled out.

I still see no sign that this is spreading person-to-person.

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Re: So. Africa: River water tested after eight die..E-COLI!!!

Since I don't like when stories go dead without explanation, I found this one. Wasn't cholera, was E. coli. This thread will be renamed shortly.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=143&art_id=vn20090731103923270C109613

'E Cape rivers tainted with human faeces'
John Yeld
July 31 2009 at 06:20PM



All rivers in the Mthatha and East London areas of the Eastern Cape regularly tested by the national Water Department are contaminated with human faeces, Parliament has heard.

And the department has confirmed that a spring and a river used by the Mpheko community near Mthatha, after their regular supply from the OR Tambo municipality was disrupted, were also faecally contaminated.

Eight people from this village died during May and June after suffering from reportedly water-related diarrhoea and vomiting.

The department, which launched an investigation into polluted water in the province, revealed the contamination in response to parliamentary questions by DA shadow deputy environment minister Annette Lovemore.
Continues Below ↓








Lovemore had asked Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica for details on the results of the Mpheko investigation; whether water from Eastern Cape rivers was regularly tested for bacteriological contamination; and whether any bacteriological analysis of any other rivers during the previous three months (mid-March to mid-June) had revealed a risk to human health.

In her reply, Sonjica said water samples from the Phantsi kwentaba spring used by the Mpheko community showed levels of 1 190 colonies per 100ml (cfu/100ml) of the E.coli bacterium, while the Mpeko River had a level of 258.

A cfu is a "colony-forming unit", a standard scientific measure of water contaminated by faecal matter.

The SA National Standards (SANS) recommendation for drinking water is zero.

The spring tested positive for more than 1 290 total coliforms per 100ml and the river 336, with the SANS recommendation for this measure also being zero.

The spring also had a significantly higher total iron content (6.28 mg/l) than the SANS recommendation of less than 0,2.

Sonjica said water from all the major rivers in Water Management Area 12 (the affected area), and from rivers where there were waste water discharges, was tested either monthly or bi-monthly, or quarterly.

These included 20 rivers in the Mthatha area and nine rivers in the East London area, including the major Buffalo and Nahoon rivers.

None had a cfu/100ml count of zero, with the lowest count being 122 and the highest in excess of 2 400.

Sonjica said the results revealed a risk to human health if the water was consumed, but that this was not surprising.

"Since most of (these) rivers run through human settlements, it is expected that they would reflect a varying degree of cfu/100ml, which is indicative of faecal contamination.

"It should be noted that the department discourages drinking directly from any water resource by humans, as its mandate is to manage water resources for fitness for use, not for direct drinking purposes."

Sonjica did not comment on the Mpheko incident in her reply, but had visited the village in June and expressed her sincere condolences to the affected families.


In response to other parliamentary questions by Lovemore, Sonjica said 2001 regulations compelled municipalities to comply with SANS drinking water standards (SANS 241).

Her department's Blue Drop Report, published in May, had measured the performance of municipalities in supplying drinking water, including meeting SANS 241.

"The regional offices (of the department) in the respective provinces are providing support and guidance to the identified municipalities that are capacity-challenged to ensure that improvement of drinking water quality management is ensured soonest," she said.

Support included help with water quality monitoring in Limpopo and water treatment optimisation to the Ikwezi municipality (eastern Karoo), and funding support with Amatola Water in the Eastern Cape.