The Zimbabwe cholera epidemic has claimed over 4000 victims and sickened over 90000 as of March 9th, 2009. Cholera outbreaks can be traced to polluted drinking water. Now South Africa fears they could be the next country caught in an epidemic.
South Africa's water supply has improved since apartheid ended in 1994 when 14 million people lived without access to a "formal water supply" and 21-million lacked basic sanitation. Even with this progress today 5 million people lack clean drinking water and 15-million lack proper sanitation. To add to the burden the public water infrastructure is crumbling due to age and a growing population polluting the municipal water supplies.
Currently the tap water supply in South Africa is still safe, however, "In 2008, half of the municipal water supplies surveyed in Western Cape Province, on the country's south coast, had high levels of the potentially deadly E. coli bacteria..." Certain industries can release E. coli into water systems, but usually it is an indication of human or animal waste contamination.
How can South Africa keep this waste out of their water supply and avoid opportunistic diseases like cholera? It's an important question being pondered by many nations including the United States who recently receive a bad (terrible) water infrastructure grade care of The American Society of Civil Engineers.
To try and stop water born pathogens South Africa heightened it's health awareness campaign to educated people about proper hygiene and how diseases like cholera are spread. The Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) says that money has been put aside to deal with the crumbling infrastructure. A study from Ghana, however, warned that an extremely large government subsidy would be required to build a conventional sewage system.
If South Africa can build a better sanitation system to catch up to it's rapidly expanding population the question remains: Should a conventional sewage system like North America's, which involves using drinking quality water to flush waste, be adopted? With concerns over the lack of fresh water supplies increasing a possible solution could be recycling urine into crop fertilizer by utilizing urine diversion toilets that use little to no water. Composting and urine diversion toilets are currently being tested throughout South Africa to see if they are a practical solution.
Bringing safe water to people dependant on polluted rivers and stream for their drinking water is another key to solving the disease problem. Fortunately, a life saving invention could be on its way from company called Element Four. They have developed a machine called the WATERMILL, which produces fresh potable water from the air. This machine and the development of a larger model called the WATERWALL could save many people in Africa and around the world from exposure to water borne pathogens.
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