Cholera: Zamfara Govt Urge To Overhaul Water Supply System

The Zamfara State government has been urged to urgently overhaul public water pipes, control open defecation, punish open dumping of refuse and regulate sachets water production and supply to spread of cholera.

Speaking during an exclusive interview with LEADERSHIP,  a principal researcher at the Federal University Gusau, Dr. Oluchukwu Abba, said water distributed to different households is treated centrally, but the challenge is that the routes through which it gets to households are dangerous.

“Some pipes are broken, some pass through gutters, and those gutter waters get into the supply chain to different households. Some of the pipes are rusty, all these lead to different challenges because by the time it gets to the final user, the water is already contaminated. An ordinary man or a layman assumes that this water, because it is tap water, is free from microorganisms, not knowing that by virtue of it moving from one point to another, it can be contaminated on the way. Most times, this has become the problem we have,” he said.

Dr. Oluchukwu added, “It has to be a very seriously integrated approach. If something needs to be done, it needs to be something very comprehensive. They have to check the whole pipelines to ascertain where and when these things are compromised and how they can fix them. If possible, a complete change of the whole pipeline is a welcome idea. But this costs a lot of money.”

Oluchukwu added, “For the sachet water, some of those people that produce water within the state have clearly not registered with NAFDAC. So they are producing water unregulated. Some of them are just mushroom producers.

They do not sincerely have the machines they should use to actually sterilise water. They just fetch maybe borehole water or tap water, package it and distribute it to their communities as “pure water.” That is why we reached out to NAFDAC. We paid a courtesy visit to NAFDAC. In fact, they were there during the dissemination of the report and we told them that there is need for synergy between the state and NAFDAC so that these local operators will be duly registered. From time to time, it is important that they also go back and test these products to be sure that what they started with is what they are still maintaining. If possible, they should advance and become better, not worse.”