COVID-19/WATER
people in the world without access to clean water, states non-profit Water Aid in its report
Faulty toilet technologies and mismanagement of faecal sludge are the main reasons for soil and groundwater contamination. A 2012 CSE research in 71 Indian cities shows that cities are not completely connected by sewage, so sewer is directly dumped into water bodies polluting them to the brim. In subSaharan Africa, people walk long distances to get water from lakes, streams and rivers, already contaminated because of untreated excreta, states the JMP report. The region is already distressed by open defecation and has 138.2 million people who do not have access to safe water. Nigeria, which has the highest number of open defecators in the world, has 69 million people without access to clean water, states the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey of 2016-17 published by the National Bureau of Statistics.
What's extremely disturbing is that as many as 1.8 billion people, living in the low- and middle-income countries, consume groundwater with faecal contamination, says a report in the journal
This places people at risk of diarr-hoeal and other water-borne diseases. In India, 60 per cent of the deaths are caused by diarrhoea. The 2019 national health profile of the Central Bureau of Intelligence shows 1,362 people died of diarrhoea in 2017 and another 1,450 in 2018. The fear now is that groundwater contamination may, in some way, be linked to spread of COVID-19.
1.8 BILLION PEOPLE, MOSTLY LIVING IN LOW- AND MIDDLE-INCOME COUNTRIES, CONSUME GROUNDWATER WITH FAECAL CONTAMINATION. THIS PLACES PEOPLE AT RISK OF DIARRHOEAL AND OTHER WATER-BORNE DISEASES
in April 2020.
“Globally, a huge population depends on groundwater when there is not enough water supply,” says Shashank Shekhar, associate professor at the department of geology, University of Delhi. In fact, 50 per cent of the global population uses groundwater for drinking purposes, shows a 2012 UNESCO study. In urban areas people turn to bottled water during water scarcity. This, again, is mainly sourced from groundwater, adds Shekhar.
Yet, countries have shown little seriousness in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). Water Aid's report reveals that countries that do not have access to basic water supply are mostly in Africa. But they spent only 3.94 to 20.64 per cent of their climate finance fund between 2010 and 2017 on WASH (see 'Poor performers’ on
It shows that countries have not recognised the importance of building resilience to climate change, states the Water Aid report.
However, there is good news amid the gloomy reality—making safe water available to all is not impossible. The pandemic has thrown open opportunities for the world to learn how to tackle the effects of climate change—groundwater can be recharged by harvesting rain and protecting the water bodies; and safe technologies to manage excreta and wastewater can protect surface as well as groundwater. In India, the Central government's Jal Shakti Abhiyan aims to work towards water conservation. Union Minister of Jal Shakti Gajendra Singh Shekhawat claims that projects have been launched to recharge groundwater, and protect and renovate water bodies.
WE ARE in the throes of an unprecedented global pandemic, perhaps unexpectedly with a variant of a virus we collectively contained and managed in the SARS
epidemic of 2002-2004. This new SARS-CoV-2, or COVID-19,
has thrown the world into a storm, with no corner on Earth unaffected. Its impact has already been severe on the social, political, economic, security and health fronts. Our anxiety for personal and collective safety has risen to understandably high levels.
Our governments are investing in war-like strategies such as lockdowns and total isolation to flatten the infections curve and maintain the numbers with levels that our mostly fragile, and under-resourced, health systems can manage. I write this when South Africa’s infections have climbed above the 1,000 mark and we have recorded our first COVID-19-related
death. Dark times!
Water is central to both the containment of infections as well as the treatment regimen of those who are infected and ill. Regular washing, in particular hand-washing, is one of the better lines of defense against the further spread of the virus. Hand-washing campaigns have gone to the top of the list of many national interventions. What this has inevitably done, as crises generally do, is put a magnifying glass on the issues of water security and safe sanitation access. And once again, worldwide, but mainly in the Global South, we have been found wanting.