CAIRO: Drinking water in some of the villages in Mahalla El-Kobra was found unfit for human consumption due to high levels of minerals and chloride, according to a report by the chemical and bacteriological labs at the Ministry of Health. The findings are some of several released by the Ministry of Health, according to local reports, saying that drinking water does not meet minimum standards because of high percentages of calcium, magnesium, iron, chloride, salt and sulphur. Daily News Egypt was unable to reach the Ministry of Health to confirm they released the report. The local council discussed issues raised by members Mostafa Hamouda and Talaat Ashour regarding the quality of potable water in the villages of Al-Kamaliya, Kafr Feyala, Kafr Hegazy, Shubrababel and Saft Torab - where 200,000 residents are at risk of kidney failure. Hamouda argued that the sanitation process doesn't take place regularly and urged the Ministry of Housing, Utilities and Urban Communities as well as the National Organization for Potable Water and Sanitary Drainage to interfere. "The problem is that water purification stations operate at a certain level of purification. Even when the pollution in the water increases, they operate at the same level so the water that reaches people is polluted, said Afaf Ezzat, professor of biochemistry at the National Research Center. "Water should be tested frequently to determine the components that should be added [to act as disinfectants], but what happens is that they add certain chemical components that aren't sufficient, she added. A study published by the Chinese Zhejiang University's science journal showed that the current water purification system in Egypt uses surface water as a raw water supply without a preliminary filtration process. "Chlorine gas is added as a disinfecting agent in two steps, pre- and post-chlorination. Due to these reasons most of water treatment plants suffer low filtering effectiveness and produce the trihalomethane (THM) species as a chlorination by-product, the study stated. "New strategies must be devised to control the problem of water pollution and [the government] must intensify laws that ban factories and ships from dumping their waste in the Nile, Ezzat said. She also recommended campaigning against polluting the Nile and underlining the importance of preserving water resources. According to statistics by the World Health Organization (WHO), around five million people die worldwide each year from poor drinking water, poor sanitation, or a dirty environment.
