Public Health Act; 1969

This Act is about public health matters in Swaziland. It concentrates on the prevention of (communicable) diseases and nuisances and regulates to some extent the manufacture and handling of food. Part III is about nuisances, which is defined in a long list of actions or conditions including, among other things, keeping watercourses, sinks, watertanks, or cistern in a foul condition, keeping vegetation dangerous to health, keeping of a polluted well or other source of water supply or any cistern or other receptacle for water, whether public or private, the water from which is used or is likely to be used, by man for drinking or domestic purposes or in connection with any dairy or milkshop, or in connection with the manufacture or preparation of any article of food, occupying a dwelling for which such proper, sufficient and wholesome water supply is not available within such reasonable distance as under the circumstances it is possible to obtain, animals so kept as to be or likely to be offensive or injurious to health, or various other states of pollution of land or water that may be injurious to public health. The Act defines an obligation for anyone not to create a nuisance and for public authorities to take measures to maintain its area at all times in a clean and sanitary condition and to prevent pollution of any supply of water which the public within its area has a right to use and does use for drinking or domestic purposes. Authorities can initiate an (enforcement) procedure against persons that create a nuisance.
Buildings used for storage of food shall comply with requirements sets out in this Act. The Minister may, by notice published in the Gazette, make such Regulations as may be necessary or expedient for the prevention of disease and the preservation or promotion of public health. This, among other things, includes the inspection, by prescribed officers, of factories, stores, shops and other places where food is manufactured, prepared or kept and the taking of samples, the detention, seizure, destruction, treatment or disposal of food found unfit for human consumption, the inspection of food for exportation, prohibiting the import of food which is not clean, sound and free from any disease, infestation or other infection or contamination, and the licensing of food premises.