JORDAN: Some three hundred residents of Jerash's Sakeb village suffer from poisoning

Hundreds of Jordanians residing in the Sakeb village of the northern Jerash governorate suffer from bouts of sickness due to poisoning. Locals blame deteriorating water infrastructure and contaminated water, but officials say the cause is still unknown and might be food poisoning. Around 300 residents of Sakeb village in the northern Jordanian province of Jerash have suffered from bouts of diarrhoea, fever, and vomiting caused by poisoning that they attribute to contaminated water, although the authorities say the cause is unknown and could be food poisoning. While many living in Sakeb speculate that the reason for people falling sick is the deteriorating water infrastructure and aging water pipes, government officials have not yet given a definitive cause for the outbreak of illness in the villages, and are waiting for laboratory analysis results. But Abu Ahmad, who lives in Sakeb and whose family members were poisoned, believes that contaminated water has made people ill. "The poisoning is from the water because they keep patching up the pipes, so they never get fixed properly. That's how contaminated and sewage water infiltrates the pipes. This is all evident, pour some water and you'll see, there is nothing hidden. My daughter has six children, two of them are still hospitalised in Jerash hospital and they just transferred another two to the hospital, they have high fever and are vomiting," said Abu Ahmad. "We got our water ration this Saturday and the water tasted weird and I got poisoning. When I drank the water it had a weird taste and at 12 a.m. I started vomiting and felt nauseated. They took me to the hospital in the ambulance and thank God I am now better," said Abd al-Rahman Hamad, another Sakeb resident who was hospitalised with symptoms of poisoning. Many of the cases were transferred to Jerash hospital, where they were visited by the Jordanian minister of health, Salah Mawajdeh. According to Mawajdeh, the cause of the poisoning is still unknown as test results need 48 to 72 hours to be completed. Ministry of Water and Irrigation employees have also been sent to the village to check the government's water supply, he added "When I arrived at the hospital I found all the staff performing their duties to the best of their abilities. We are conducting an investigation into the source of the poisoning, the germ and its location. This takes some time. Lab tests will take 48 to 72 hours," Mawajdeh said. "I spoke to the Minister of Water on my way to the hospital. He is aware of what is going on and has deployed some of his staff to the area," he added. Deteriorating infrastructure has previously lead to several incidents in which a large number of people were hospitalised because of contaminated water. The most recent such incident occurred in July, when hundreds of people suffered from a virus from contaminated tap water in the northern village of Manshiyeh.

ITN Source | October 29, 2007

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