Trucked water was tainted
Published:Wednesday | June 9, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Tyrone Reid, Staff Reporter
Laboratory tests ordered by the health ministry have confirmed that contaminated water was sold to a rural area all-age school where there was an outbreak of gastro-enteritis in March.
The lab tests confirmed that the health of an entire all-age school population was gravely compromised by a trucker who harnessed water from an untreated source and sold it to the institution.
As a result, the Ministry of Health has renewed its warning to administrators whose schools are forced to have water trucked in to supply the needs of its students.
"We would advise institutions in this situation to ensure that water delivered is properly treated before using it for domestic purposes and to call the local health department for assistance in this regard," noted Dr Eva Lewis-Fuller, director of health promotion and protection in the Ministry of Health, in response to Gleaner queries.
The ministry also reminded truckers that water tanks should be properly cleaned at three- to six-month intervals.
The gastro outbreak left dozens of students and at least one teacher with diarrhoea and other symptoms associated with the water-borne disease.
Earlier this year, a Gleaner exclusive revealed that a total of 34 children in the 5-12 age group and a teacher had the symptoms of the water-borne disease.
"This is to inform you that the result of test(s) done on water taken from the school in question did, in fact, show isolation of pathogens which matched sub-stantially the pathogens found in water taken from the source," Lewis-Fuller stated.
However, Lewis-Fuller added that the number of pathogens in the sample taken from the school was fewer than that taken from the source.
"This would suggest that the water at the school could have been taken from the source tested (or a similar source) and that the water supplied to the school was not adequately treated," she said.
Still unsure of cause
Despite the test results confirming the water was laced with pathogens - an agent that causes disease, especially a living micro-organism such as a bacterium or fungus - the ministry said it was unable to pin down the source of the gastro outbreak at the school.
"It has not been determined unequivocally that the unsafe water caused the outbreak in the school. You will recall that stool specimens taken from affected children did not yield any specific pathogens. As already pointed out, several factors working in concert could have resulted in the outbreak (for example) generally poor sanitation, lack of adequate hand-washing facilities, bathrooms in disrepair, etc.," noted Lewis-Fuller in response to follow-up questions seeking to determine the cause of the outbreak.
Prior to the tests, public-health officials who investigated the matter determined that the water trucked to the school was from an untreated source - a spring. As a result, they handed a 'Notice to Abate the Nuisance', issued under the Public Health Regulations (1995), to the operator of the trucking service to cease and desist from distributing water from any unsafe sources to the school or any other institution.
After the gastro outbreak, the health department called in the National Water Commission and the state-owned company took up the task of supplying water to the school.
Earlier this year, Lewis-Fuller also said that information gleaned from the local health team looking into the circumstances surrounding the outbreak revealed that, for many years, the school had received water through a trucking arrangement managed by the parish council.
She also highlighted unsanitary findings at the school, some of which were apparently by-products of the chronic drought conditions choking the island's formal water supply system, while others were seemingly the result of unhygienic practices.
The island's months-long drought has subsided with heavy rainfall in May and June.