Maputo — The Mozambican Health Ministry launched on Thursday a new programme to purify drinking water and thus help prevent diarrhoeal diseases, including cholera. It is estimated that about 5,000 children aged under five die of diarrheal diseases around the world every day.

The new programme, to be implemented by the NGO Population Services International (PSI), is for the distribution of a new water purification product, named "Certeza" (Portuguese for "certainty").

The manufacture and marketing of the product is to cost 200,000 US dollars during the next 18 months.

Speaking during the launching ceremony, deputy national health director Avertino Barreto stressed the importance of this new product in public health in Mozambique, pointing out that it has been extremely costly to treat the cyclical outbreaks of cholera the country has suffered.

"This is another product that will be good to improve public health", he said, adding, however, that "both this drug and the cholera vaccines are not the solution. These are simply instruments, and the solution still lies on prevention".

Barreto acknowledged that the health ministry alone cannot solve all the country's health problems, hence it relies on partnerships with NGOs to help manufacture various products that help improve public health.

"Before, we had the problem of goiter, and we introduced iodised salt, then we needed impregnated mosquito nets to fight against malaria, and today we are introducing "certeza", that helps in the fight against cholera and the effects of HIV/AIDS", he recalled.

This product has been tested in other countries and showed an efficacy rate of about 85 per cent, It is described as simple and practical.

Barreto said that it is particularly important that the product is launched at the beginning of the rainy season, when the country is at risk of water-borne diseases such as cholera.

"Thus we are certain that even without the cholera vaccine we will solve some of the problems", he said.

"Certeza" is to be sold in 150 millilitre bottles in chemists, shops, and even in informal stalls, at the price of 8,000 meticais (about 27 US cents).

That quantity is enough to treat 1,500 litres of water.