ActionSA urges Bhisho to plan for cholera outbreak

ActionSA has issued a stern warning to the Eastern Cape government to ensure municipalities implement stringent wastewater treatment measures to avert a possible cholera outbreak in the province.

The party’s provincial chair, Athol Trollip, said this could be done by making municipalities responsible for wastewater treatment submit monthly water-quality reports on effluent discharged into rivers, water courses and the ocean.

Trollip said a majority of wastewater treatment works in the Eastern Cape were less than 50% compliant with the minimum effluent-discharge standards.

This is according to the department of water and sanitation’s integrated regulatory information system dashboard of 2020. “The lack of accountability and political will on the part of the provincial and national governments to demand compliance from those local municipalities that are guilty of contaminating freshwater sources with raw sewage exacerbates the risk of a latent and pervasive cholera outbreak in the province,” Trollip said.

He said that given the poor maintenance of water treatment infrastructure and water distribution networks in the province, Action SA did not expect the Eastern Cape to be spared a preventable and avoidable health disaster.

Eastern Cape health spokesperson Yonela Dekeda said in light of the more than 50 confirmed cholera cases nationwide and more than a dozen fatalities, the department was conducting awareness campaigns in a bid to minimise risks of people contracting the disease. “No cases have been detected in the Eastern Cape to date.”

Dekeda said to reinforce the department’s infection prevention and control efforts, health promotion teams had been visiting schools, taxi ranks, street vendors, churches and correctional services centres to raise awareness of the disease and the importance of proper hygiene.

“This is part of creating awareness as well as educating the public on the risks of contracting cholera.

“They [health promotion teams] are further equipped with information about preventive measures to avoid contracting and spreading the disease.

“To strengthen the campaign, the department has since hosted a hand hygiene day starting in the OR Tambo region last month,” Dekeda said. ActionSA filed a memorandum with the Office of the Premier on April 26 highlighting the high risk of a potential health disaster in the Eastern Cape owing to the inadequate treatment of wastewater and the lack of maintenance of water treatment infrastructure.

In the memorandum, the party expressed concerns over the growing quantities of sewage that had been allowed to flow into coastal waters in the province.

“These incidences are hidden from the unsuspecting residents and visitors of our coastal towns.

“The principal cause of [sewage] discharges is the lack of maintenance of water treatment infrastructure, which is a dereliction of duty on the part of those mandated with the upkeep of municipal infrastructure.

“We are concerned about the risk of a health disaster as a consequence of [sewage] contamination,” the document reads.

Trollip said the poor quality of drinking water in the province would not only affect ordinary residents but also the economy because sectors such as agriculture and the ocean economy were adversely affected by the sewage discharge.

Trollip said ActionSA demanded an emergency plan that would outline urgent measures that would be put in place by co-operative governance and traditional affairs MEC Zolile Williams.

The plan would address the need to overhaul the province’s water treatment and distribution infrastructure, hire the requisite water engineering skills and improve compliance with the minimum effluent standards to avert any avoidable health and economic disasters.