- Title: KENYA: Kenyans use sun's rays to sterilize water
- Date: 21st March 2008
- Summary: VARIOUS OF NDUNGE FETCHING WATER FROM TAP
- Embargoed: 5th April 2008 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Kenya
- Country: Kenya
- Topics: Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
- Reuters ID: LVADJSJEH2I9TVNWEUJNIF0HM7AS
- Story Text: Residents in Kenya's largest slum are practising an easy and affordable way to make drinking water safe. The method is gaining popularity and being widely used in the slum where disease thrives due to poor sanitation and water quality.
Kibera slum in Kenya's capital Nairobi is one of Africa's largest, home to about 1 million people. Congestion, poor sanitation and dirty water have made diarrhoea, typhoid and cholera common medical problems here.
28-year-old Carol Dunge lives in Kibera with her husband and 3-year-old son. Like most homes in Kibera, Carol's house does not have piped water. She has to fetch water from taps scattered around the slum.
"The water in Kibera is not very safe the tanks are never cleaned; they gather a lot of dirt so what we fetch from the tanks is actually dirty water," said Ndunge.
Water in Nairobi is disinfected with chlorine by the Nairobi Water Company but some Kenyans still do not find it safe.
Kibera is an exceptional case -- because of poor drainage and sanitation here, the water gets contaminated in the pipes underground, which are cracked in places and let in dirty water.
Carol is treating her water using a new method of purifying water called SODIS or Solar Water Disinfection that has changed her life.
The method is unbelievably simple. It uses the sun's UV rays to kill bacteria. The water just has to be exposed to the sun in clear plastic bottles, for at least 6 hours.
She has been using SODIS since 2006 and says since then she has never had any problems.
"Before I started using SODIS on my water, my child was always sick. When I would take him to hospital, the doctors would tell me that it is the water I was giving him that was causing the illness because I never used to clean it. But as I use this method now, my child is hardly ever sick,"
said Ndunge.
The process was discovered in Switzerland in the 1980's and is now in use in several developing countries.
It was introduced to Kenya in 2004 by an NGO called Kenya Water for Health Organization or KWAHO.
Project manager Joshua Otieno says the country is an ideal location for the practice.
"In Africa especially east Africa we are blessed with a lot of sunshine and if probably there is no sun, its cloudy perhaps its 100 percent we advise users to leave the bottles for two days, consecutive two days so that that suns rays can be able to activate the pathogens and if perhaps its 100% cloudy we encourage them to use other methods like boiling," said Otieno.
Most Kenyans boil drinking water or buy it bottled for about 1 US Dollar per litre -- too expensive for one third of all Kenyans whose daily income is lower than the price of a bottle of water.
For 14 US cents anyone can buy an empty plastic bottle from SODIS promoters who visit homes in the slum daily, and get started. The bottles can be used for up to a year.
"I think it's a good idea, if it means I wont have to buy paraffin to boil water, I just put the water in the sun and the bacteria dies, and I will have economized on spending, if the water is safe I can do it also,"
said Philip Kolombo, a Kibera resident.
SODIS has been approved by the Kenyan government and the Ministry of Water carries out regular tests on SODIS water.
Results show that the sun's UV rays kill faecal bacteria, known as E-coli, which scientists at KWAHO say is the most harmful water contaminant.
But analysts worry that other types of contaminants should not be ignored and more research should be done.
At the Makina self-help primary school in Nairobi's Kibera slum 250 children drink water treated by SODIS. Teachers here say the children don't stay home sick as compared to before they started using SODIS.
More than 300,000 of Kibera's residents already use SODIS and seem to be happy with the results.
According to the United Nations, over 1 billion people on the planet do not have access to safe drinking water. Changing this is a major challenge for scientists and governments all over the world. Even if more research is needed, simple methods like SODIS might help provide an answer. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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