Health Alert: Unwashed Water Storage Tanks Linked To The Proliferation Of Diseases

Mrs Nene Bristol has lived in the same compound for over 11 years. She moved to the house when she married her husband in January 2013…..CONTINUE READING

The compound located in the Ada George area of River State, houses six flats and two bedrooms. The Bristols live in the two-bedroom apartment and share two big water tanks with the rest of the neighbours.

However, she told our correspondent that since she moved into the compound in 2013, the water tank had not been washed.

“It is even shocking to me right now that it has been 11 years already and they (the owners) have not washed it. There was one time when the water coming out from the tank was greenish and we contributed money for it to be treated.

“It took about three days for the water to return to normal but the chemical used for treatment was too harsh for some people. Some people with sensitive skin had rashes after using the water.

“Even my husband had a skin reaction and we had to buy loads of antibiotics thinking it was an infection of some sort until our dermatologist told us that it was a water-related skin infection. It was a major issue then but somehow it just didn’t cross our minds to wash the tank,” she said.

What is more, Mrs Bristol also told Sunday PUNCH that she used the water from the tank to cook, bathe, and sometimes, drank it when she could not afford to get sachet water (also known as ‘pure water’).

“I really don’t know how we can do it (wash the tank). The tank is so high up in the sky and it will be difficult. One time, a man said he would wash it, but others opposed it, saying no one should pour a detergent into the tank in the name of washing it; it has just been chaotic,” she added.

One of her neighbours in that same compound, who gave her name as Erefagha, told our correspondent that she stopped drinking the water from the tank when she found a dead frog inside it.

“I raised the issue in our WhatsApp group about the need to wash it but the rest of the tenants said it was unnecessary since we always pumped the water every two days. I simply use it to bathe and cook sometimes,” the mother of two said.

Erefagha said she moved into the compound in 2019 from an apartment in Eleme after her husband was dismissed from his former place of work.

“I moved into this compound in November and expected that the tank would be washed in December but I am shocked that it has been more than eight years and no one has thought to wash it even after there have been terrible cases of water-borne diseases in the compound,” she said.

Her only daughter, Tumini, almost lost her life days before her 17th birthday.

At seven, she picked an apple from the refrigerator and decided to wash it before eating, but that was where her problems began. After eating that apple, she began to experience stomach discomfort. She became restless and had beads of sweat forming around her head.

“Before we knew what was happening, Tumini was on the ground, writhing in pain. She vomited what looked like blood and was no longer talking. She was only seven years old at that time.

“We had to rush her to a clinic and she was admitted. The doctor, after many tests, asked what the last thing she ate was. It was examined and revealed that it was the water.

“I snapped the result and posted it on the compound’s WhatsApp group chat but no one believed me. That was the last time I drank that water.

“We are planning to relocate to another compound for this singular reason but the money has not come the way we want,” she added.

A resident of a small compound in the Ajao Estate area of Lagos State told our correspondent that the water storage tank in his compound had not been washed since he moved in in 2018.

“It is a bluish 1,500-litre tank and it is shared between me and my neighbour. We are both single people and we do the same job that makes us travel a lot of times. So, the water can just be in the tank for three months without anyone using it.

“I don’t think we have ever thought of washing it because it is even too high and climbing up there can be disastrous,” he added.

Omerua, who said he did not drink the water, stated that he used it to cook.

“I use it for cooking, sometimes, and I remember seeing a brownish colour once, and we called a plumber who said the pipe was blocked. He simply asked us to pump the water from the machine and we did and it became clear after some hours,” he noted.

Access to potable water

Many residents in many urban centres own boreholes with water storage tanks installed on a high beam or platform. These storage tanks, which are mostly plastic, can also be metal.

Without water, life cannot be sustained beyond a few days and the lack of access to adequate water supply leads to the spread of diseases.

Water of both acceptable quality and sufficient quantity is critical for proper human health and well-being.

For many years, attention has been focused on both access to and quality of water, but while access to safe water has significantly improved worldwide, quality appears to be further declining and it has been deteriorating more than proportionally to the economic and population growth.

Quality drinking water has acceptable chemical, physical, biological, and radiological characteristics, based on local and widely-acceptable international standards, such as World Health Organisation standards.

According to official data from the World Health Organisation, safe drinking water remains inaccessible to about 1.1 billion people in the world.

Those most susceptible to waterborne illnesses are children, the elderly, pregnant women, and immune-compromised individuals, making water-borne illnesses one of the five leading causes of death among children under age five.

A lecturer in the Department of Agricultural and Bioresources Engineering, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State, Dr V. D. Chia, noted that domestic water supplies were among the fundamental requirements for human life.

He said, “Diarrhoea diseases, attributed to poor water supply, sanitation, and hygiene, account for 1.73 million deaths each year and contribute over 54 million disability-adjusted life years, a total equivalent to 3.7 per cent of the global burden of disease.

“The failure to provide safe drinking water and adequate sanitation services to all is perhaps the greatest development failure of the 20th century. If no action is taken to address unmet basic needs for water, as many as 135 million will die from these diseases by 2030.”

Public water supply is generally inadequate and, in most cases, inaccessible. The supply is intermittent and unreliable, thus resulting in high dependency on unsafe supplementary sources such as streams, hand-dug wells, and ponds.

As the population grows and urbanisation increases, more water is required, and greater demand is made for ground and surface water.

Nigerian cities are growing at an exponential rate of between 10 and 15 per cent, according to official figures from the National Bureau of Statistics.

Human activities, including soil fertility remediation, indiscriminate refuse, and waste disposal, and the use of septic tanks, soak-away pits, and pit latrines are on the increase.

For most communities, the most secure source of safe drinking water is pipe-borne water from municipal water treatment plants, which, in many cases, are mostly unwashed.

Sustainable Development Goal Six addresses universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water.

This implies that all people in the world have the right to access water in the right amounts, quality, and cost, in a sustainable manner.

A 2019 report by the World Bank indicated that the proportion of the world’s population using safely managed drinking water services had been increasing, even before the adoption of the 2030 SDG.

However, the apex bank noted that despite these efforts, the world still faced an invisible crisis of poor water quality, which threatened among other things, the well-being of humans.

Also, the diminishing quality of water can be attributed to contamination at different points of the water supply system, including distribution and storage.

Although many local and international organisations have directed vast efforts toward the improvement of water quality, water contamination is still rampant.

Water storage, the main feature of the indirect water supply system and many other piped water supply systems has for many years been identified as a source of contamination of domestic water.

According to research by Dr Musa Manga of the Water Institute at UNC, Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina, United States of America, household water storage is fraught with many challenges which result in compromising the quality of water.

A survey conducted by our correspondent using Google Forms showed that out of 213 respondents, 181 said they had not washed their water storage tanks in the last five years.

More than 110 said they were not aware whether their tank had been washed or not. Over 13 per cent said they were not aware their water tanks were supposed to be washed because of how high it was placed.

Only nine per cent stated that their tanks were washed, at least, every year, which is still below the recommended standard of once every three months.

In Manga’s submission in the article, “The effect of household storage tanks/vessels and user practices on the quality of water,” he noted that water storage tanks did harbour several pathogens that cause different diseases and illnesses.

He stated, “Waterborne illnesses caused by bacteria found in contaminated household water storage tanks increase the risk of spreading waterborne diseases, and may lead to many infectious outbreaks.

“With the projection by the United Nations in 2018 that nearly six billion people will be faced with clean water scarcity by 2050, there is a critical need to investigate sources of water contamination.

“Several studies, many of which from the developing world, have investigated the impact of water storage on water quality.”

He further queried, “What features of storage tanks or vessels and user practices impact household water quality? How do the features of storage tanks or vessels and user practices affect household water quality? What can be done to mitigate the effects of the storage tank or vessel features and user practices on water quality?”

According to Pressure Wash Nigeria, the lack of air in the confined space of the tank is a comfortable ground for algae and bacteria buildup.

The group stressed that water storage cleaning should be thorough and regular.