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Scientists are warning that drinking water supplies in parts of rural West Africa are being contaminated by lead-containing materials used in small community water systems such as boreholes with handpumps and public taps.
They analysed scrapings taken from the plumbing of 61 community water supply systems in Ghana, Mali and Niger. Eighty percent of the tested systems had at least one component that contained lead in excess of international guidance.
Lead is released into the water when the components corrode.
The study, by a research team from the University of Leeds, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Boston University, also took samples of the water from those 61 water distribution systems, and from a further 200 taps and boreholes with handpumps.
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Author of the article: Geoffrey P. Johnston
Publishing date: Apr 29, 2021 • April 29, 2021 • 8 minute read
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After weathering the first wave of COVID-19 infections, India has been engulfed by a massive second wave, overwhelming the health-care system and plunging the country into a terrifying humanitarian crisis.
Johns Hopkins University reports that as of April 28, India had a cumulative case count of 17,997,113 COVID-19 infections, second only to the United States. Since the onset of the pandemic, 204,832 people in India have been killed by the highly transmissible disease. On April 27, India recorded 360,927 COVID-19 cases in a single day, a world record. That same day, 3,293 people in India succumbed to COVID-19.
The Ministry of Health & Wellness (MoHW) has confirmed that the effect of the pandemic has stretched its capacity to cope, especially with rising cases and limited resources. Health centers across the country are currently overwhelmed since the advent of the coronavirus and the situation is deteriorating following a spike in the number of people infected with the virus.
MoHW Chief Public Relations Officer, Christopher Nyanga said theycontinue to manage all health facilities through measures such as patient bookings and decentralization of some resources and where possible, distributing services to different health facilities across the country, as a means to cope with the existing problems. “Health services continue to be offered to the best possible capacity through monitoring in line with the ministry’s mandate of provision of quality universal health care services in line with the country’s vision to attain “Health for All,” by 2036 and the targets of the United Nations