Cape Talk, Thursday afternoon

Just three days ago, after the number of people who'd looked for medical assistance after gastrointestinal illness linked to Bronkhorstspruit's water supply reached 833, the minister said, I'm still firm that there's no outbreak, there's no death, there is no one that is critical. And I did raise an eyebrow at that, thinking how many people does it, how many people need to be affected before it becomes an outbreak. 833

Suffering symptoms related to a single cause seems to me pretty outbreaky. And I think we're quite lucky that there hasn't been a death. Dr. Aslam Dassou is one of a group of people under the label the Independent Science Reference Group who also picked up on this statement. Aslam is also the convener of the Progressive Health Forum, amongst other things. On the line to us now from Johannesburg. Aslam, good afternoon.

Good afternoon, John. Good to be with you. It is a crisis. The fact that nobody has died is a blessing. It doesn't make it less of a crisis. Of course, you're quite right. And that's what we tried to highlight in the article that we wrote. Because, and a lot of us felt that it needed to be said exactly like that by people who have facility in this kind of issue to ensure that people are.

Aware that to take the advice of politicians with little facility in healthcare or even it seems in water management is a potential danger to them. We've known for a long time that even by the dismal standards of management of local municipal services, the city of Trane seems to excel in this issue. And if I can just make reference to this, because

In 2004, they were already warned about the Roibal Waste Treatment Plant that was ailing. They did nothing until 2011, when it finally broke down. For another eight years, they did even less, bittering among themselves, changing local governments, taking office, but not fixing the problem until it became a cesspit of pathogens. Cesspool, I should say, pathogens.