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Momodou
Denmark
11513 Posts |
 Posted - 14 Jun 2021 : 12:20:41
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This is alarming specially having worked with the drinking water quality during my Greenland years were its a requirement that the whole community are asked to boil the water before using it whenever E.coli is detected in the water until the cause is detected and new tests shown that there are no more E.Coli bacteria in the water. The parameters of the water should always meet the WHO guidelines.
May Allah continue to help our people.
Into The Gambia’s Water Paradox
How a country with plentiful water resources is failing to provide safe water to its people
The Chrnicle: Jun 13, 2021
By Frederic Tendeng
https://www.chronicle.gm/the-gambias-water-paradox/
Ya Nima Jaiteh, 14, washes her face at a tap in her family’s compound. Despite having access to plenty of natural freshwaters, an investigation has revealed extensive contamination through the nation’s formal and informal water supply systems.
Bintou Kijera was exhausted. Neither she nor her three-year-old daughter had slept the previous night: the little girl was too sick.
The two were at The Gambia’s second-biggest hospital, Serekunda General Hospital, where the toddler had been diagnosed with diarrhea.
“I have changed her diapers more than four times,” the young woman said, pointing at the pale and malnourished-looking girl mounted on her back.
Neither Kijera nor the nurse who diagnosed her daughter’s condition could say for certain what caused her diarrhea.
“I don’t actually know whether it is caused by the food she ate or the water she drank. She just started to pass frequent watery stool the day before yesterday, and it became worse last night,” Kijera said.
This lack of detail and information about the girl’s illness is a common problem. Hardly any of The Gambia’s public health centers have the facilities for examining and identifying what strain of bacteria is causing diarrhea in their patients.
Kijera’s suggestion that water may have made her daughter ill is likely accurate: a data-driven investigation has uncovered shocking details of the dangers of water consumed by people in mainland Africa’s smallest country.
It shows how a series of spiraling events in the poor treatment, delivery, and handling of water badly compromises the quality of The Gambia’s water. This includes both piped water and water from open wells drawn from the country’s underground sources.
More than 45.3% of The Gambia’s population is relying on contaminated water sources.
The devil’s in the details.
The most recent Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) report, released in July 2019, found that 73.2% of the country’s 2.2 million population had E. coli in household drinking water. MICS is a multi-purpose household survey conducted by The Gambia Bureau of Statistics, with technical support from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). It takes water samples from both pipe-borne water sources and open wells across the country. The survey found that remnants and by-products of feces from humans and some animals are the main sources of E. coli in household water.
Read the rest at: https://www.chronicle.gm/the-gambias-water-paradox/
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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Chronicle: Into The Gambia’s Water Paradox
