As the death toll from a winter cholera outbreak approaches 50, health officials in South Africa are advising inhabitants of the province of Gauteng to be cautious about the liquids they ingest.
Unions and neighborhood organisations have called for further government action to raise the standard of the water.
There have been incidents nationwide, but the majority of deaths in the past six weeks have been in the Hammanskraal region, where locals claim they have fought for weeks to get access to safe water.
People are frequently forced to rely on government trucks because tap water is hazardous in many locations.
When left untreated, cholera, which is mostly spread through tainted food and water, causes extreme diarrhoea and vomiting and can be fatal in a matter of hours.
Cholera can be endemic or epidemic. A cholera-endemic area is an area where confirmed cholera cases were detected during the last 3 years with evidence of local transmission. A cholera outbreak/epidemic can occur in both endemic countries and in countries where cholera does not regularly occur.
In cholera-endemic countries, an outbreak can be seasonal or sporadic and represents a greater-than-expected number of cases. In a country where cholera does not regularly occur, an outbreak is defined by the occurrence of at least 1 confirmed case of cholera with evidence of local transmission in an area where there is not usually cholera.
Cholera transmission is closely linked to inadequate access to clean water and sanitation facilities. Typical at-risk areas include peri-urban slums, and camps for internally displaced persons or refugees, where minimum requirements of clean water and sanitation are not been met.
