The Min­istry of Health has ad­vised cit­i­zens against cook­ing or eat­ing from items that have been soaked by flood wa­ter. In a re­lease the min­istry warned cit­i­zens to nev­er taste foods to de­ter­mine whether they are safe or not.

The min­istry ad­vised that if flood wa­ters reach stored food, the food may be­come con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed and cau­tioned against the fol­low­ing that had been taint­ed:

• Fruits and veg­eta­bles;

• bags or car­tons;

• dam­aged cans; and

• any poul­try or an­i­mals that were drowned in the floods.

It said cit­i­zens should not play or bathe in flood wa­ters since a wa­ter-borne dis­ease could be con­tract­ed.

It ad­vised peo­ple who have been af­fect­ed by flood wa­ters to wear rub­ber gloves and oth­er pro­tec­tive cloth­ing for per­son­al pro­tec­tion dur­ing clean-up to avoid di­rect skin con­tact with con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed ma­te­r­i­al.

The re­lease rec­om­mend­ed wa­ter could be made safe for drink­ing and do­mes­tic use by ei­ther boil­ing or adding 1/8 tea­spoon of house­hold bleach to one gal­lon wa­ter and let­ting it stand for 30 min­utes be­fore use.