HAVANA, Cuba.- In several municipalities of Mayabeque, cases of gastrointestinal diseases have been reported in recent days. Residents of Quivicán, Bejucal and San José de las Lajas declared to CubaNet that “the water is arriving mixed with sewage and with abundant pathogenic microorganisms dangerous to health.”
“The water is reaching the pipes with a bad smell, there are no controls on the quality of the liquid that we drink a long time ago and this has caused many people to get sick, in my neighborhood more than 10 people are with the same symptoms, a lot of vomiting, fever and diarrhea,” Damián Salazar, a resident of 21st Avenue in Quivicán, told CubaNet.
For his part, Yandi Medina, a specialist in internal medicine in the same municipality, explained that “we have received many patients in the emergency room in recent days with the same symptoms: vomiting, fever and diarrhea, it is infections in the tract caused by some bacteria that is being consumed in the water, many patients have arrived totally dehydrated and we have had to leave them hospitalized for several hours to hydrate them intravenously”.
A worker from the Water Quality and Control Laboratory, located in Bejucal, who preferred to remain anonymous, explained to us that “chlorine levels in drinking water are well below established parameters, many times it has had to suspend the water service in the municipality because there is a shortage of chlorine”.
“Another of the contamination factors is the number of leaks in the sewage and drinking water pipes, which means that when the service is removed, the pipes fill with contaminated water and that reaches the houses later,” he added.
The specialist recommended “boiling the water before consuming it, although even so, it is difficult to avoid getting infected because it is scrubbed, cleaned and we even bathe with that contaminated water.”
Recently, a similar outbreak of gastrointestinal illnesses was reported in the province of Pinar del Río, official media of the Island indicated that the Center for Hygiene, Epidemiology and Microbiology of the province ruled out that there are cases of cholera associated with the outbreak of gastrointestinal infections by water transmission.
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