HYDERABAD, June 5: The country representative of the World Health Organization, Khalif Bile Mohamud has strongly recommended home-based water purification system in the city.

Talking to this correspondent on Saturday, he said that Unicef and WHO would support such system that would be put in place with the participation of representatives of the district, provincial government and civic bodies.

Dr Mohamud accompanied by executive director National Institute of Health, Dr Athar Saeed Dil, Unicef's provincial officer Rana Syed, Dr Asif Aslam, Dr Ghulam Nabi Kazi and other officials visited the water treatment plant of Hyderabad Development Authority.

He said that in every developing country raw water was always contaminated that was why treatment plants were established. He observed that treatment plant was not maintained that was why the water crisis occurred.

He stated that Unicef and WHO would supplement home-based water purification system because there were other resources of water for the city besides treatment plant.

He stressed the need for an intensive action plan to ensure that community involvement in the system so that people could themselves treat water at homes.

He said that if water was not fit for consumption then it should be boiled and chlorine tablets should be used before drinking.

He said that water samples collected by WHO officials indicated the presence of germs in water and added that contaminated water might have caused deaths in cases of severe and acute diarrhoea.

He said that the problem was the supply of safe and pure drinking water. He said that the people must use vegetables with great caution because they might have been cultivated with contaminated water.

He advised vegetables must be washed with chlorine treated water and used after 20 minutes.