Malawians cannot continue to eat and drink feaces accompanied with water – Newspaper editorial

Malawians are not safe. The water they have been drinking is heavily contaminated with feaces and debris, findings of various studies carried in a local newspaper have revealed.

According to study reports carried by The Nation daily newspaper on Thursday, majority of Malawians nationwide could be drinking water with high levels of faesal matter  and other  coil forms everyday.

The paper carried an editorial comment on the matter and noted that the problem could be worse in city peripherals such as Ndirande in Blantyre , Kauma in Lilongwe  and Chibavi in Mzuzu – whose inhabitants are languishing in abject poverty compared to the middle density Area 18 where, hitherto, ” we were meant to believe that sanitation and hygiene conditions are much better.”

The paper pointed out that there has been many years if “neglect and lackadaisical approach” to duty  by authorities putting lives of millions of Malawians in jeopardy.

“Malawians cannot continue to eat and drink feaces accompanied with water and other edibles. The long term effects are indeed dire as health and sanitation experts will attest. Let authorities responsible do something about this,” the newspaper editorial said.

In its lead story, paper  reports that  a review of various studies conducted in Blantyre, Lilongwe and Mzuzu cities as well as some districts , shows that the feasal contamination is least a thousands  times  more than the level the World Health Organisation recommends  as safe for human consumption.