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New research that strongly suggests the coronavirus can spread through faecal matter has raised concerns among residents of Eastern Cape townships and informal settlements where raw sewage frequently runs freely in the streets.
The study comes as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the country rose to 150 on Thursday.
Researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong say their study confirms Covid-19 can be transmitted through faeces.
They arrived at this conclusion after testing 339 stool, sputum, nasopharyngeal swab, deep throat saliva, blood and urine samples from 14 people with coronavirus.
Covid-19 was present in all 14 patients, while other variables were sometimes absent.
The research appears to corroborate a study of three coronavirus patients in Singapore, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association earlier this month.
The virus also showed up in the stool of these patients, the study found.
Another international study, published in the New England Medical Journal on Tuesday, has shown that coronavirus could survive in the air for up to three hours, and on a plastic surface for three days.
Plastic and steel surfaces had a longer contamination window of the virus than cardboard, where it survived for up to 24 hours.
In “Stinking Truth”, an award-winning investigative series published in 2019, the Dispatch showed how raw sewage flowing into rivers and through the streets of townships and informal settlements was wreaking havoc in the lives of Eastern Cape residents.
In Makhanda, the raw sewage situation has become so intolerable that a group of 10 residents have taken the Makana and Sarah Baartman municipalities and provincial and national government to court over the spills.
On Wednesday, Buffalo City Metro mayor Xola Pakati could not say how the city would deal with an outbreak in areas like Duncan Village, where the sewerage system is in a poor state, should a coronavirus outbreak occur.
The mayor was responding to a Dispatch question on how the city planned to deal with the virus should it enter the metro and whether he was aware of the faecal matter research.
Pakati said: “We are after the Covid-19 protocols as defined by our SA national department of health. Up until now we have not been informed that Covid-19 is a waterborne disease.
“We will respond as and when that is pronounced by the national health department. You must remember that we’re a sovereign state,” he said.
Questions put to the provincial and national health department on Wednesday were unanswered at the time of writing on Thursday.
Human settlements, water & sanitation minister Lindiwe Sisulu’s spokesperson, McIntosh Polela, said he would respond to questions, but he had not done so at the time of writing
When the DispatchLIVE visited Duncan Village this week, faecal matter could be seen in the sewage pouring from drains just metres away from homes.
A taxi driver passing by the Dispatch team shouted: “This is our life, we are exposed to this everywhere in this township.”
Resident Mawande Moss, 34, said if the Chinese research proved correct and the virus infected a single Duncan Village resident, it would spread like “rapid fire here”.
“The sewerage system is very bad here. As a result the whole township is dirty. Nothing is clean. If the virus were to get here, it’s over for us,” Moss said.
“We use public toilets, so you can imagine. You leave the toilet, I come in and I don’t even know you.
“There is always a smell. We would die if the virus were to get to these parts because the public toilet system and the whole sewerage system are bad.”
In Makhanda’s Joza location, sewage flows everywhere because the pipes are too narrow and the sewer blocks.
Joza resident Mbuleli Qonqa, who lives in Extension 6, said: “If that’s [Chinese University of Hong Kong study] true, the whole community of Grahamstown would be infected in a matter of seconds. The sewerage system is not treated or managed. Sewage even floods the taverns. You can imagine.”
“You drive on top of sewage. If the coronavirus comes to the Eastern Cape, the whole community here is in trouble.
“The measures to curb the virus would not work here because all the streets in Rhini flood with sewage. We have a big problem in our hands.
“Our municipality cannot do anything because it does not have resources.”