Pollution of drinking water threatens people's health in Central Vietnam

According to official statistics in 2004, more than 1,434 people in the Central region have cholera, typhoid, dysentery, amoeba dysentery, dysentery syndrome and diarrhea.

Waste in the river after the rain (Photo: monre.gov.vn)

The numbers of water quality and drinking water surveys conducted by Nha Trang Pasteur Institute and the Preventive Medicine Centers implemented in 2005-2006 continue to confirm the disease due to environmental pollution from feces. Among 739 water sources in 4 provinces in the Central region were randomly surveyed when standing alone, the indicators of pH, Chloride, iron, Ammonium, Nitrite, Nitrate, oxidation are from 82.4 to 99.7% of the samples meet the standards of the Ministry of Health, particularly the heat-resistant Coliform index (only nominal contamination) only 5% of the samples meet the standards.

But when synthesized, only 60% of the samples met the physicochemical standard, 5% of the samples met microbiological standards, resulting in only 3.2% of the samples meeting both physicochemical and microbiological standards. The risk factors causing water source pollution stem from the fact that rural families have built latrines, animal sheds and garbage pits too close to surface water sources; there is no means to prevent pollution of water sources such as ground, wells, unhygienic water and water storage facilities.

According to the latest water test results conducted by preventive medicine centers in 2006, only 18% of the water source is not at risk of contamination; 21% of the water source is at risk and 8% of the water source is at risk 7, 5% of the water source is 8 at risk and 2% of the water is at risk of 9 pollution. Pollution due to frequent feces requires water treatment plants to continuously disinfect chlorine water. Many water plants do not meet this requirement, so 19% of tap water samples do not meet microbiological standards and 48% of samples do not meet physical and chemical standards; In total, 55% of water samples did not meet the Ministry of Health's drinking water hygiene standards.

Rivers, a common source of water for the city's water plants, must always receive the domestic and production wastes of the community. Typically, the Cai river water, after flowing through Nha Trang city, all suspended sediment indexes, B0D, COD, NH4, grease, Coliform, were increased from 2.2 to 62.8 times (Coliform ).

Although hazardous organic substances from different sources of waste are entering surface water, it is mentioned in the World Health Organization's Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality and the Ministry of Health has introduced gender values. term in drinking water quality standards, there are specific test regulations. But the analysis of these indicators requires complex techniques, expensive equipment and skilled skills, which takes a long time, so there is no drinking water, including tap water in big cities, Full analysis of hazardous organic substances in the water source there.

This is very difficult to ' punish ' under the Law on Environmental Protection. People in Central Vietnam so far have not been forced to build facilities for ' waste discharge ' under a certain standard. As for the water quality monitoring and supervision of professional agencies and water management and exploitation establishments, but once they have not been given enough responsibility, have not been fully accounted for, they can hardly love ask them to take responsibility for the quality of the clean water they provide. So the risk from drinking water will still last.

Nguyen Hai (Quang Binh)