Prevention of gastrointestinal infections in India

tommytoes

Hello all, thanks for the overwhelming information.

I'd like to boil water whenever possible, and minimise bottled water reliance. Some questions:

1) What receptacles are the most handy? (I imagine a 1-2 litre stainless steel pot, which is bulky, but cleanable, and then i'd only need to boil once a day in H. room for filling bottles etc)

2) Do these immersion heaters achieve a rapid boil?

3) is it overkill to use a coffee filter to clean the water first?

4) If using bottled water, what sorts/ sizes of bottles can be recycled (if at all)?

Thanks folks,

T.



For the doctors: I have only one kidney (albeit a big one!), should i avoid using Iodine?

Thanks again,
T.

Nick-H

Some thoughts...

Isn't it recommended to boil water for about twenty minutes for sterilisation? Certainly just bringing it to the boil is not enough.

Consider the practicalities of doing this in a hot, humid climate (depending where you are going and when, of course)

In theory, at least, bottled water will have gone through far more effective methods of cleaning than boiling: reverse osmosis will have removed a lot of stuff that is still going to be there after boiling.

Coffee filter? Slow and useless. Won't remove anything other than visible dirt --- and if the water is that bad, I wouldn't even wash in it, let alone boil it for drinking!

If you are determined to process your own water (errr.... if you see what I mean ) then I'd suggest that you look in to the portable purifiers that are available, but expensive.

A lot of water bottles get recycled --- sometimes with tap water in them; check the seal! You will see rag pickers taking plastic items from garbage.

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IndiaMike Mod Team (The Grumpy One)

Sama

this is my third trip to india and am in madurai right now....

this of course may not be the usual thing, but on this trip I have eaten street food more than once....

AND HAVE SURVIVED with no ill effects!

not that I would make a regular habit of it, but hey, it can be done!

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"a clear conscience is the sign of a bad memory"

atala

Before getting a Katadyn Water filter (the combi with a charcoal filter plus a clay filter) I used to boil my drinking water for 10 minutes, which is supposedly required to kill any possible typhoid germ.

the practicalities of it are as follows:

no generally not.
there are two sizes that you get in India. The bigger one is too big and the small one works only in a small vessel, but it takes half an hour to bring one and a half litres to a boil, and even then the water boils only slightly. Best is if you can bring a water-boiler (jug-type) that you might use in your home.

If you do it with an immersion heater you need an extension because often the plugs are too far away for the short line at the heater.

There is one specific problem with immersion heaters: they need to be covered to a certain extent which normally means you need to fill your vessel as much as possible. If it starts boiling it is likely to spill, which makes a mess.

for the small heater a one-and-half litre stainless steel vessel is good. You buy it here in India. You need the lid to cover the vessel for cooling the water which takes a few hours. If you heat it in the evening it cools over night.

Problem is if you travel in the hot season, one-and-a-half litre is not enough water. You need at least 3 litres.

No, it is not if you are in a village environment where you get water from a pump. Or if you take water from a river (which would be no problem for a Katadyn. With that you could even take water from a puddle in the street.)

Buy a Katadyn and solve all your problems all at once. They last decades, and you can even use them (at least the combi) in places in the West where tap water is not drinkable (like in the U.S.)

http://products.katadyn.com/brands-a..._Combi_23.html

atala

They are all recycled in India, even in ways you'd prefer not to be offered to you (refilled and sold with dirty water )

The one-and-half litre bottles are useful because you can screw them onto a Katadyn and fill the bottles with the purified water that you pump into them.

Nick-H

Katadyn --- yes, that's the one I was thinking of.

Probably you need to get through quite a lot of water to pay for one, but you may well chose to use one for reasons other than the economic balance sheet.

And it'll pay for itself a lot quicker than the reverse osmosis machine I have in my kitchen !

atala

You get them online for as low as US$ 120 to a high 220, good for 13'000 Gallons (50'000 liters) of basically clean city-water. One uses it up earlier if one takes really dirty water because one has to scrub off the ceramic part which collects the dirt, so that the clay cylinder is scraped off over time. An additional cost factor is the carbon powder which collects the chemicals and pesticides in the water. It needs to be replaced at a maximum of about 200 liters of water pumped thru (about 2 months if you drink 3 liters a day), and at a lower water-level if used with a type of water with a heavy chemical content. Like for instance in West Bengal where a lot of arsenic is in the pumped drinking water, the arsenic would accumulate in the carbon filter which then needs to be changed more often.

The overall benefit over most bottled (or boiled) water is exactly that the pesticides are also taken out while they are still in treated bottled water, unless that is also processed by reverse osmosis which includes one or two stages of carbon filters too (if it does).

If you come to think about the importance and value of drinking water, to buy any such technical item should not weigh heavily on your mind. Of course, the Katadyn has the additional plus of easy portability. But it basically does the same thing that the Indian water-purifiers with clay candles do that you can buy everywhere a lot cheaper, some even with a carbon filter stage. Only you cannot travel with them.

atala

You do not need to bring coffee filters but can just use a piece of cloth, but you really only require it with water drawn from a well via a pump (or river water of course).

Actually when you do your laundry with water from a hand-pump it is useful to filter that water by pouring it thru a piece of cloth because you often get particles of rust from the pump which would permanently damage (color) your laundry.

Your thinking is quite in place, by the way, if you use any other filter afterwards, because the cleaner the water the longer the life of your filter.

tommytoes

Your advice is very helpful, I'll try and hunt down one of these today!
All the best,
T.

tommytoes

While i was looking at water filters, i found out about the Steripen UV purifier.
Has anyone used one of these?
Thanks,
T.

vistet

Sterile and disinfected are two different things.In hospitals everything that has reached 85 degrees is considered safe by mouth and on superficial wounds , but not in the blood stream. I run disinfection units every day, that takes both bedpans and the instruments we use for tracheostomies and rinsing the mouth : the LED shows 85 degrees after complete cycle , OK.The head of the microbiology department has made a standing offer to come and eat from a plate that has been run together with a bedpan in one of these units.
Lower temperatures and longer times will also kill off most enteropathogens , the 60 degree wash cycle has been created with this in mind.


I´ve had UV treated water in two different settings : in a mountain hut in Scotland, and
walking with a friend in Nepal. The bothy in Scotland had a water supply with a lot of peat , so it was pre-filtered and then run thru the UV thingy. In Nepal a couple of months ago I saw the Steripen in use for the first time, and it was a winning experience. There is a new Steripen out in the market now , smaller and less heavy and can be combined with a carrying case that doubles as a solar charger for the batteries . (The scottish bothy also runs off the grid , from panels and a windmill. )

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Nick-H

Please do a search of the site. I know that they have been used and mentioned by at least one member.

atala

After checking with Amazon's customer reviews on the steriPen, I would say I would get one of those in addition to my Katadyn Combi because it comes in handy in restaurants when drinking water is put on the table. I would still use the filter though on other water because that takes out both chemicals and germs, while they remain in the water (even though dead, the germs) with the SteriPen.
http://www.amazon.com/review/product...DateDescending

Too bad amazon does not deliver to India.

Zeppy

I wish that somebody who knows what's what and does not merely go on product advertisements would settle these water purification facts for once and for all, in a way that's meaningful for tourists buying equipment.

We, semi-well informed, had a travel immersion heater and believed that if the water was brought to a boil and boiled through and through--i.e. not just boiling at the top, but also at the bottom of the container--it was safe to drink. We also chose to buy a water purifer--a pump that used chlorine--instead of UV and katadyn devices on theory that what UV did was not 100% clear and that the katadyn filter might not protect against viruses. We got through around 20 days in India with our travel immersion heater and chlorine pump.

I don't think it was our processed water that finally made us get sick... Seemingly, it was water on a restaurant plate that gave one person a case of vomiting with fever (this was in Madurai), and (judging from the date) plane food leaving India that gave the other giardia.

Nick-H

It would be nice, yes... but I suspect that, even if we had senior scientists in the field posting here, they might disagree on the effectiveness of the available systems.

Well, I'm not one of said scientists, but I think you would boil, for instance, a baby's bottle for longer than this --- and that, in UK, at least, would have already been washed in safe-to-drink tap water.

What device did you chose? Is there a link we can look at?