NITRATE IN DRINKING WATER: HOW SAFE IS THIS IN AFRICA AND ASIA?

Abstract

Drinking water is one of the essential needs of life. Water comes from either a natural surface or a ground source. One of the rights of man is access to safe water. Unsafe water is due to anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic sources. One of the problems caused by these sources is the elevation of nitrate in water. Elevated nitrate in the body makes it harder for red blood cells to carry oxygen, this can be very dangerous for infants and some adults. Infants exposed to high amounts of nitrate may develop “blue baby syndrome”. The aim of the paper is to find out how safe drinking waters are in terms of nitrate in Africa and Asia. To do this, selected articles were reviewed to determine the content of nitrate in different countries. The results were compared with national and international reference standards.

Keywords

• Water
• unsafe
• nitrate
• blue baby
• non-anthropogenic sources
• distillation