Norovirus-contaminated water from Betanzos It’s over, no further outbreaks of gastroenteritis have been declared.Coordination between City Council and City Council succeeds Viaquathe franchise offers multiple means to the task and, like the first episode, has the best specialists in the country.
On August 2, all drinking water restrictions were lifted. Neighbors were unable to cook or drink the water they brought for more than a week after the alert was issued on June 22, but they were able to shower or do laundry.
Fortunately, this is an early warning. The rigorous analytical system established by Viaqua made possible the early detection of norovirus. Unlike previous outbreaks in the spring, SERGAS did not report any new outbreaks of gastroenteritis.
With some 13,000 inhabitants, Betanzos Municipal Council has access to technical and human resources of a quantity and quality unmatched by many municipalities, and indeed many cities.
Virologists and Specialty Laboratories
In June, more than 20 professionals joined via Viaqua, including renowned virologists. Among them, Albert Boss, Professor at the Department of Microbiology, University of Barcelona, ​​President of the Spanish Society of Virology.
Biosecurity experts plan to clean up the network and gradually reopen the city’s six warehouses. The task was carried out by 35 technicians from the different regions of Galicia, of which the company is also the franchisee.
Due to the coronavirus outbreak in the spring, Viaqua increased the intensity of its analysis to levels well above legal requirements.Technicians expanded sampling sites, such as the Xan Roxo area, where water typically comes from mandio r..
Experts detected the non-infectious virus early in late June after hundreds of norovirus assays at nine sites.
Analysis and counter-analysis were carried out in specialized laboratories of public organizations such as the University of Southern California, the University of Barcelona and the Community Center of Valencia, which are part of the Viaqua network of collaborative facilities. Twenty experts in biosafety, microbiology, laboratories, water quality, treatment and crisis management, as well as virologists participated.
Viaqua spotted norovirus early on and quickly executed a plan to clean up the network.
Security of supply during a crisis
While the network is being sanitized and an analysis is awaiting to confirm its health, the council must build an alternative water supply. Not an easy task for a medium-sized city, like many other cities in Galicia, the population is very dispersed, scattered in hundreds of small population centers.
Fortunately, Viaqua is one of Galicia’s main water management concessionaires, so it was able to deploy all the necessary resources in the city. The company, in cooperation with the city council, provided Betanzos with 3 drinking water tanks. Supply is always guaranteed, and water is even delivered to the homes of vulnerable groups completely free of charge.
pollution source
In addition to the early detection of the virus, experts were able to isolate norovirus in the Mandio River’s own waters during the first phase, confirming suspicions that the source of the problem was not in the municipal network or the water tanks, but in the in its own waters of the Mandio River.mandio riverbed, ability Board of Directors.
The capillarity of the sample system gave us confidence that any new norovirus outbreaks would be detected early. However, no one can forget that as long as the sites in Mandio where people dump human waste water are not discovered and eliminated, the problem will arise again.
Pollution problems in Galician rivers are not uncommon. Many riverbeds pass past livestock areas where the farm operates mud rafts, which are sometimes involved in accidents or damage. Apart from, Galicia The community hosts many small quarries and mines, which are also potential sources of problems.
This is why in Galicia it is especially important that the local government has sufficient technical and human resources in case of a possible crisis, which is very complicated for small municipalities.
More demands on city council
This small scale doesn’t mean they won’t have to comply with the new requirements set by the EU. In Spain, these requirements have been in force since the beginning of the year following the entry into force of Royal Decree 3/2023 on technical hygiene standards for the quality, control and supply of drinking water.In addition, in GaliciaNew water laws approved in 2022 allow the government to intervene in municipal water supplies if mismanagement is found.
The regulatory framework poses risks for the Galician City Hall, which, unlike Betanzos, cannot rely on the resources of specialized companies such as Viaqua. A large group was poised to address the crisis that Betanzos was going through and resolved it through professionalism, public-private partnerships, and technical and human efficiency, by securing the appropriate means to focus on solving the problem, ensuring supply while the entire city government The network is cleared of norovirus.