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Typhoid scare puts Nongoma residents on edge
Xolani Mbanjwa
2005-11-02
The lack of sanitation and clean water and the lack of basic hygiene practices have been blamed for a scare that has left the Nongoma community gripped with fear after the deaths last week of two people suspected of having typhoid.
When the Tribune visited this week, residents said living without running
water and proper sanitation would make it difficult to fight any possible
outbreak of typhoid in Nongoma.
On average, 20 people die of the disease in KwaZulu-Natal every year, although
more than 30 have died since March, according to the provincial Department of
Health. These cases were isolated, but were mainly from areas where there was a
lack of sanitation and clean water, said department spokesperson Desmond Motha.
The problem of typhoid was recently highlighted by KwaZulu-Natal premier, S'bu
Ndebele, and local government MEC, Mike Mabuyakhulu, at the province's first
Water Summit, held in Durban last month.
Mabuyakhulu said KZN faced the biggest challenge of all the nine provinces in
dealing with water-supply backlogs. There were 679 836 households that did not
have access to clean water and 992 600 households that did not have sanitation.
Ndebele said, as in Mpumalanga where an outbreak left three people dead, KZN was
not immune to what had befallen communities there.
With many streams and rivers running through Nongoma, people living in these
areas were highly vulnerable to the disease as these were their main sources of
water - apart from the Watercan (a truck that carries water).
Indeed, residents can be found swimming, defecating and washing laundry in the
very rivers and streams from which they take water for drinking, and for their
livestock and gardens. This makes them vulnerable to diseases such as typhoid.
For pensioner Nomabhubesi Dlamini, living without running water and sanitation
has always been a problem for the whole community. Look around here, there
are no toilets.
So when people want to go they just go to the edge of the rivers nearby,
or the bushes, and defecate there and the problem starts when it rains and we
get sick more often, said Dlamini.
She said her family of eight had used the water on the Mqanga River for as long
as she could remember. There's nothing we can do because the Watercan only
drives out here once a day. We never use chlorine to purify water, we just boil
it.
Management at the Benedictine Hospital in Nongoma said there was no cause for
concern about a suspected typhoid outbreak, as tests conducted on the two
patients who were suspected to have died of the disease had revealed that they
had actually died of HIV/Aids-related illnesses.
Dr Solomon Tselane, acting hospital Medical Manager, told the Tribune that
although the deaths had sparked a scare among the Nongoma community, the
endemic fever was not unexpected during this time of the year in
Nongoma.
Tselane said during the rainy season - which begins soon - typhoid scares were
rampant, but there was no reason to be concerned.
Our health teams have taught people in the community to practise basic
hygiene by simply washing their hands after defecating, or chlorinating water
from the rivers and streams before using it for consumption.
If people were to practice these logical hygiene practices, the spread of
the disease could be prevented.
Tselane said overcrowding in a household also had a great impact on the spread
of typhoid.
In Nongoma, three people died in September and only one child was currently
sick.
In Newcastle, five members of a family were admitted to hospital with diarrhoea,
which is a symptom of typhoid infection, after eating meat from a cow
slaughtered on a neighbouring farm.
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