Cape Town - Are unsafe levels of bacteria at City beaches making people sick?
This is the question local beachgoer Shannon Ebrahim cannot shake as she has been dealing with gastroenteritis after visiting Strand beach at Murray street, which, according to the City’s water quality results for December 6, recorded a Enterococcus level of 1 300, while the safe limit is 200cfu of enterococci per 100ml.
Enterococcus is a bacteriological indicator of faecal contamination.
“I just got into my knees and put my hands in the water because the entire ocean was brown, not brown after rain, actually dark brown water. There were people swimming but there were no signs saying no swimming, beach closed, water has E coli or anything cautionary,” she said.
“Since Sunday I’ve been sick with gastro symptoms, vomiting and diarrhoea. Today (yesterday) I feel very weak. I made the link because it happened so soon after visiting Strand beach and I later discovered it had been closed due to a sewage spill last month.”
Concerns have recently been raised about how safe Cape Town’s beaches are following several beach closures over polluted water over the festive season.
Stellenbosch University’s Department of Global Health, senior lecturer emeritus, Dr Jo Barnes said: “All disease-causing organisms that are excreted by humans are present in sewage. E coli is the organism of choice to monitor for the presence of sewage since it is the best for that purpose, except in very brack or salty water such as seawater, where Enterococcus is used together with E coli as Enterococcus survives for longer under those conditions. This means that a whole range of diseases can potentially be transmitted under such contaminated conditions. That includes diarrhoea of various origins, skin, eye and ear infections, urinary tract infections and many more illnesses.
“The likelihood of beachgoers or swimmers getting infected depends on how long they were exposed to the contaminated beach or sea environment, how intimately they were exposed, the condition of the immune system of the beachgoers, and many more factors.”
Community activist Caroline Marx who founded Rethink The Stink which informs communities about the existence and dangers of contamination of water bodies, said long-term poor sea water quality at many of Cape Town's beaches is more concerning than once-off spills.
“Enterococci indicates the presence of sewage with its associated disease causing organisms like viruses, bacteria such as Listeria and parasites like intestinal worms.
“In December so many beaches like Strand, Three Anchor Bay, Green Point , Silverstroom, Longbeach, Seaforth and Sonwabe were far over the Enterococci 185 cfu/100ml level which indicates poor quality with a 1 in 12 chance of becoming ill after a 10-minute swim. Some were more than 13 times the poor quality limit.
“Even more concerning, by only testing to a maximum of Enterococcus 2 419/100ml,City results hide the severity of the contamination and the severity of the associated health risks.
Infections acquired in seawater are often not documented and go under-counted even though they may be severe and spread among family members,” she said.
Meanwhile, the City said it had not received any reports of illness from swimming in the affected sea.
We are currently in the annual surge season when there is a general increase in diarrhoea cases,” the City’s mayco member for community services and health, Patricia van der Ross, said.
Mayco member for Spatial Planning and Environment Eddie Andrews said the City installs signage at tidal pools/beaches that are impacted by a known pollution event, informing the public to avoid contact with the water until further notice.
Residents who have concerns related to quality of the water, are requested to report it via the following channels to arrange for a sample to be taken:
· SMS 31373 (Maximum 160 characters)
Cape Times