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An alarming 21 people have now died due to a cholera outbreak in South Africa, with most cases occurring in Hammanskraal, north of Pretoria.

Scores of people have been hospitalised with the bacterial disease in Jubilee regional hospital despite toxic water conditions being well documented for over three years and various arms of the state neglecting any real intervention.

As the Mail&Guardian notes, “Let us be clear of the enormity of this issue — in the capital of Africa’s most advanced economy, people are dying of cholera” – a wholly preventable disease, might I add.

To make matters worse, the bacteria is spreading. On Thursday, the health department confirmed the first cholera death in the Free State, noting that a resident from Vredefort became the first person in the area to succumb to the disease.

Civic organisation groups AfriForum and Save Ngwathe say that water samples taken from the Vaal River in Parys have tested positive for cholera, reported TimesLIVE, which led to this latest death:

Both [organisations] went on to say: “It is extremely worrying that the withdrawal point for Vredefort’s water is only 1 km from the sewage spill [caused by a manhole that has been pouring sewage into the river for some time]. It is precisely in Vredefort where there are also confirmed cases of cholera and where a resident died from this virus.

“This information further proves that the Vaal River is indeed infected with cholera. There are several places where the raw sewage flows into the river due to infrastructure that is burnt out or is simply not available, load-shedding and the fact that there is no emergency assistance such as generators or emergency pumps.”

This outbreak of cholera was just a matter of time, according to epidemiologist and associate professor at Stellenbosch University’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Dr Jo Barnes via MoneyWeb:

“Cholera is as much a disease of poorly handled sewage as it is of drinking water quality,” said Barnes, and Hammanskraal “is a case study for the sustained failure by responsible authorities over more than a decade to improve the water and sanitation of that area”.

This is backed up by the Department of Water and Sanitation’s own records and presentations to parliament.

The Rooiwal sewage works have been spilling toxic pollution into the Apies River (Hammanskraal’s main water source) since at least 2011 as it has been over capacity and “evidently poorly operated and maintained”, unable to purify the raw water to the required South African National Standard.

As if we needed one more reason to completely mistrust the people in power.

AfriForum is urging the Department of Water and Sanitation to intervene as a matter of urgency:

“I sincerely hope that the authorities and especially the department of water and sanitation realise the vital importance of this problem and intervene at the incompetent municipality. The help that AfriForum has been offering for the last two years has been ignored time and again and now innocent people are paying for it with their lives,” said Alta Pretorius, AfriForum’s district coordinator for the Mooi River region.

This legacy of bad quality has turned into a humanitarian crisis, and it could get significantly worse if the government doesn’t get off its fat ass and fix things.

[source:timeslive&moneyweb]