Bottled water from shut plant ‘safe to drink’

Manama, July 11, 2012

Consumers have nothing to fear despite "yellow impurities" being found during tests at a water bottling plant that was recently shut down for violating public health regulations in Bahrain, said health officials.

However, officials from the Health and Industry and Commerce Ministries yesterday refused to disclose which plant had been closed or the brand of water affected.

The Health Ministry said its food control section had carried out inspections and laboratory tests on bottled water plants to ensure products in the market were clear of contamination.

"The ministry has shutdown one drinking water production plant after finding yellow impurities in its products," said a statement.

"After microscopic tests on the sample the labs concluded that the contamination was non-bacterial. The ministry prioritises the importance of the consumer safety and it is carrying out heath inspections on all the food and beverage establishments.”

Well-placed sources also said consumers had nothing to fear.

"All the water tested is drinkable and should cause no problems to healthy people," they said. "Some water may affect children or people with low immunity but for normal people it should all be fine."

The health scare led to a government hotline for health violations being inundated with calls, with at least 30 complaints about the issue.

"All the company's products have been withdrawn from the market not just from the sample batch but everything," said a public health official. Now we are investigating everything in the market."

There are about 30 water bottling plants in Bahrain and the our sister paper, the Gulf Daily News contacted 10 of the biggest factories and found only one factory was not operational.

But officials from that factory would neither confirm or deny whether its products were contaminated and said the reason it was not operational was due to repairs. – TradeArabia News Service

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