The municipal of Cape Town has clarified the situation around the city’s typhoid fever outbreak. The outbreak is not linked to the city’s tap water, according to the municipality.
This comes after neighborhood groups began receiving WhatsApp messages urging residents not to drink municipally supplied water.
According to the municipality of Cape Town, ‘typhoid tap water’ is not real.
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) issued a warning on February 16 that enteric fever, a new name for an ancient plague known as typhoid fever, is on the rise in South Africa.
The outbreaks, according to NICD’s Centre for Enteric Diseases head Dr Juno Thomas, were found in two of the country’s provinces: The Western Cape and the North West.
Shortly after the news was announced on 18 February, Western Cape residents – where the highest number of cases have been recorded – went into a panic and started circulating messages about the City’s tap water being linked to the outbreak.
Cape Town ETC reports that the province has reported a total of 64 cases in three different districts, Cape Town Metro health district, the Cape Winelands, and the Garden Route. The North West, however, has reported only 18 cases.
Despite the alarming number of cases in the Western Cape, the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Water and Sanitation Zahid Badroodien assured residents that the municipally provided tap water is continuously monitored.
This is to ensure that it complies with the strict requirements of the South African National Drinking Water Standard (SANS241).
“All drinking water samples tested this week complied with the South African National Drinking Water Standard on Acute Health Determinants and pose no health risk to the public,” said Badroodien.
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