Kampala — DRINKING untreated water directly from Lake Victoria could expose you to diseases, the Minister for Water and Environment, Ms Maria Mutagamba has said.

"For drinking, use treated water. Boiling it alone is not enough. The moment you boil that blue green algae, you give it another character, whereas with our treatment [by National Water and Sewerage Cooperation] we contain it," she said.

Ms Mutagamba was giving journalists an update on the state of the environment in the run up to Chogm, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs offices in Kampala yesterday.

In its September 2 issue, Daily Monitor, quoting researchers from the National Fisheries Research Institute, reported that the lake waters are infested with a group of bacteria that can damage the liver, cause cancer and diarrhoea to persons who drink untreated water from the lake.

The researchers found out that a special group of bacteria scientifically called microcystis live in the lake. Microcystis is a subgroup of bacteria generally called cyanobacteria.

They grow rapidly in water rich in plant nutrients especially during warm weather, causing a phenomenon of "algal blooms", a green filamentous mass, which was recently reported to be floating on the surface of Lake Victoria.