Australia's free environment friendly real estate service for agents and owners.

Podcast

 

FREE listings for enviro-friendly Australian real estate

We will email you the latest Australian enviro news FREE as it happens  (~ 3 stories a week)

Enviro News RSS Feed EnviroNews Podcast

Contaminated Water Kills 27 Children In Nigeria Share on Facebook
At least 27 children in a village in southeastern Nigeria have died from gastroenteritis after drinking contaminated water from a communal pool, the local health commissioner said Wednesday.

by reuters - Sunday, 18 January 2009


An emergency medical team had been sent to the village of Ndiaegu-Amaegu in Ebonyi state but residents reported the outbreak too late for doctors to prevent more cases, state health commissioner Sunday Nwangele told Reuters.

"People of the community draw water from the same source, a kind of pool, where animals also drink from," he said.

"They put the water to domestic use and bath with it too, so we think that is how they got it. It must have entered their mouth somehow and it began to spread."

Nigeria is the world's eighth biggest oil exporter and sub-Saharan Africa's second-largest economy, but the gap between rich and poor is enormous, with most of its 140 million people subsisting on less than $2 a day.

Literacy levels are low and access to basic healthcare limited in rural parts of the West African country.

"Our major source of water supply here is the stream which you know people could defecate in and wash their clothes in," said Linus Nwankwo, a local teacher.

"There is this belief here that there is nothing water could kill and that streams have a natural way of purifying themselves so I don't think people here boil their water before drinking."

 

Related Links

 

del.icio.us
Latest News Headlines

Wednesday, 22 December 2010 Reporters Without Borders to host mirror site for WikiLeaks

Wednesday, 22 December 2010 San Francisco Pledges Astounding 100% Green Energy by 2020

Wednesday, 22 December 2010 Towers to Generate Solar Power in the Dark?

Wednesday, 22 December 2010 La Nina May Be At Its Peak, Says Australia's Weather Bureau

Thursday, 18 February 2010 Tetley Tea To Be 100 Percent Rainforest Certified By 2016

Thursday, 18 February 2010 Hottest Temperature Ever Heads Science To Big Bang

Thursday, 18 February 2010 Big business leaves big forest footprints

Thursday, 18 February 2010 GUATEMALA: Anti-Mine Activists Encouraged by Canadian Ruling

Thursday, 28 January 2010 GM Puts Its Money Into Electric Motor Business

Thursday, 28 January 2010 Italy To Unveil New Solar Incentives

Copyright © 2004 - 2024 www.enviro.org.au
del.icio.us