Brasília, May 7, 2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - Representatives of the Ministry of Health and the National Water Agency (ANA) created a work group to develop integrated projects to monitor and control the quality and potability of water from Brazil's rivers, for human consumption. Yesterday (6), they discussed the principal points of their partnership, including an agreement to use laboratories to analyze water quality, joint efforts to provide water to isolated populations in the Semi-Arid regions of the Northeast and the Amazon, and training programs for health agents and water basin managers, to deal with the pollution of water resources.

The concern over water quality has to do with the many cases of hospital cases caused by diseases that are water-transmitted, such as dengue fever, typhoid, and hepatitis.

According to information from the National Health Foundation (Funasa), in Brazil, 700 thousand patients are hospitalized each year as a result of river pollution and the lack of basic sanitation. Among these figures, 45% of the cases occur in the Northeast, and 15% in the North. (DAS)