WATCH | Could water purification tablets help Joburg taxis fight off Covid-19?

Cadena SA, a non-profit organisation, has introduced a safe and cost-effective way to sanitise taxis.

The group’s innovative use of water purification tablets could stem the spread of Covid-19 — especially among SA’s vulnerable, who are unable to purchase pricey alcohol-based sanitisers.

Mendy Gruaman, director of Jewish humanitarian disaster aid group Cadena SA, which has partnered with the Be Blessed Church, has said that the project incorporates Aquatab tablets, initially used for water purification.

“Given that its role is purification, it has the potential to provide an effective and cheap solution to costly alcohol-based hand sanitisers. The distributors of the tablet in SA looked at its use as a sanitiser and explored different options for the best sanitising concentration,” Gruaman said.

For purification purposes, one tablet would be used in 20l of water. For sanitisation, one tablet is used in 100ml of water.

The sanitisation project is being tested among some 300 taxi drivers in Benoni, Ekurhuleni, who on average transport 10 people per trip.

This translates to 3,000 people, in transit at a time, with multiple trips being done daily.

The sheer number of South Africans who make use of the taxi industry translate into a high likelihood of Covid-19 spreading in the transport sector.

Gruaman is hopeful that government will see the benefits of the purification tablet, and possibly assist in a large-scale rollout of the project.