LOIZA, Puerto Rico — Massive damage to Puerto Rico’s water system from Hurricane Maria poses a looming health crisis for island residents exposed to contaminated water, health workers and environmentalists warn.
At least 74 suspected cases of leptospirosis, a dangerous bacteria, have been reported, including two deaths.
“We’re worried that in places even that have running water whether that water is safe,” said Erik Olson, health program director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“The drinking water system in Puerto Rico was already very fragile,” Olson said.
Alicea said he is not worried about a health crisis because with each delivery, municipal workers emphasize the importance of drinking bottled water.
(Photo: Atabey Nuñez for USA TODAY) Ortiz worries that the bad-tasting, blue-colored water that runs in her pipes is unsafe.
They had tried boiling it, but “it tasted weird,” Ortiz said.
(Photo: handout, Erika P. Rodriguez) “Over the past two weeks, we’ve seen a continuous stream of adult and pediatric patients with gastrointestinal illness, most often involving fever, vomiting and diarrhea,” said Christopher Tedeschi, an emergency medicine physician at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, who returned Thursday from Puerto Rico.
Llamara Padró, a nurse at New York’s Upstate University Hospital, who volunteered with a group of 40 nurses organized by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), said they treated people with gastrointestinal symptoms and conjunctivitis.
“It’s right now a public health crisis,” said Padró, whose group worked in more than a dozen communities across Puerto Rico.