Residents dwelling close to South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, have been warned not to drink or cook with faucet water after more than 400 people, largely kids under 4, fell in poor health after ingesting contaminated water.
The circumstances were detected in Tshwane, the space which consists of Pretoria, after people reported to their native hospital with “stomach cramps and diarrhoea” over a two-week period, officers said.
No deaths have been reported but high ranges of E. coli were discovered in the water.
Tshwane has confronted quite a few outbreaks from waterborne ailments in current years. In 2023, 29 people were killed by a cholera outbreak in a township just outside Pretoria.
That outbreak, in Hammanskraal, was linked to substandard water purification practices.
In 2025, officers confirmed 48 circumstances of typhoid in the same space east of Pretoria. The source of the outbreak stays unclear.
No cholera micro organism has been discovered in the newest circumstances.
The departments of water and health, in a joint assertion on Monday, said 408 circumstances had been detected between 7 and 18 October in about 5 townships.
They said that lab checks “indicate that the illness has been caused by residents being exposed to contaminated water” from a native water therapy facility supplying water to several communities east of Pretoria.
Samples examined discovered norovirus, campylobacter, shigella and “other pathogens that cause stomach cramps and diarrhoea”, officers said.
The crew’s early investigations discovered that native authorities had failed to warn residents about the contaminated water.
The water provided to the space has been declared unfit for human consumption and authorities urged residents to only use it to flush bogs. Tankers have been dispatched to provide clean ingesting water.
“Previously stored water should be discarded, and water containers must be disinfected using household bleach,” officers said.
Additional reporting by Pumza Fihlani
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