The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has reacted to reports that raised concerns regarding the poor quality and safety of water used for sachet water production in Ghana.
According to the FDA, the sachet water is produced using filtration/reverse osmosis to remove extraneous material and UV sterilization to kill any potentially hazardous bacteria.
This follows an assertion made by the Director of Field Operations with the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), Dr. Peter Takyi Peprah, that certain sachet water sold in Ghana contains microbes.
“We must pay close attention to those involved in the production of sachet water. In 2017, we conducted a multiple indicator cluster survey in which we collected information about drinking water sources and tested the quality of these drinking water sources for a household. We discovered that 34.1 per cent of household drinking water sources are contaminated with faeces.
“Fecal contamination simply means that we have toilet waste in our water,” he explained.
But the FDA, in a press statement, said testing is done in labs as part of the FDA registration procedure to determine whether or not microorganisms are present, which is a crucial factor in the safety of drinking water.
“These include tests for E. coli, total coliforms, Aerobic Plate Count, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Streptococcus faecalis, and Clostridium perfringens.”
It added that inspection goes on periodically to ensure that these products meet the FDA’s guidelines.
“The inspection covers the starting material (water) and packaging materials to ensure that they meet their respective Ghana Standards and the finished products to meet the requirement of GS175-1:2002 (for drinking water) and GS220:2014 (for mineral water). All inspections are done in accordance with the current Codes of Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), where end products are released in accordance with the above-stated specifications.
“Finally, the Authority wants to assure the public that it conducts periodic market surveillance and product quality analyses of products in circulation on the market. Trend analysis from the FDA laboratory has not shown the observation described in the media,” it said.
The Authority is urging the general public to only purchase bottled and registered sachet water made in Ghana and with the FDA product registration information.
“Kindly report any unregistered sachet and bottled water at the nearest FDA office,” the statement said.
