A shocking failure to disinfect drinking water has been linked to a gastrointestinal illness outbreak that has left 408 people sick, most of them children under the age of four, in Bronkhorstspruit, east of Pretoria. City of Tshwane Executive Mayor Dr Nasiphi Moya has acknowledged negligence on the part of her administration, admitting that the municipality ran out of chlorine, a critical chemical used to disinfect drinking water. “We ran out of chlorine,” Moya said. The admission comes as a government investigation revealed that water supplied by the Bronkhorstspruit Water Treatment Works (BWTW) was not chlorinated for nearly three weeks, between 24 September and 14 October 2026, following difficulties with the municipality’s chlorine supplier. In a joint media briefing on Monday afternoon, 19 October 2026, the Ministries of Health and Water and Sanitation, the Gauteng Provincial Government and the City of Tshwane confirmed that laboratory investigations had linked the outbreak to contaminated municipal water. The affected communities include Zithobeni, Bronkhorstspruit, Dark City, Rethabiseng and Sokhulumi in Tshwane’s Region 7. According to the Minister of…
