Abstract
Water is essential for life and in most parts of the world including Ghana it is used for various activities such as drinking, bathing and recreational purposes. The objective of this study was to assess the bacteriological quality of swimming pools’ water in the Accra Metropolis. Five swimming pools were selected randomly and a research team visited the pools to collect water samples and at the same time administer short questionnaires about the characteristics of the pools. The average number of swimmers, swimming bathing loads, average age group of pool users, methods of disinfection, type of chlorine used, recycling, and treatment of the water before and after use were investigated. During the visit, water samples were collected for total coliform, <em>Escherichia coli</em>, <em>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</em> and <em>Staphylococcus aureus</em> counts using the Membrane Filtration (MF) method and cultured on chromogenic media. Most (60%) of the selected swimming pools had a bathing load≤20 per day. The operators of the pools disinfect their pools’ water with chorine but majority (60%) of the pool operators chlorinated their pools manually with powdered chlorine. The 20 water samples investigated show that 48% of swimming pools water was contaminated with <em>S. aureus</em>, 30.4% with <em>Ps. aeruginosa</em>, 20.9% with total coli form and 0.7% with <em>E. coli</em>. The <em>E. coli</em> count found in this study was very low indicating that the selected swimming pools were not feacally polluted at the time of sampling. It is recommended that future studies should use large sample sizes.
Highlights
Water occupies about 70% of the earth surface and is considered the largest natural resource around us
There are reports that swimming pools can be vehicles for the transmission of infectious diseases throughout the world (Sule et al, 2010). This means that with all the excitements the average Ghanaian attaches to swimming and the health benefits derived from using the swimming pools, if care and additional precautions are not taken, they could be exposed to harmful microbes
Microorganisms detectable in swimming pools water usually originate from the skin, mucous membranes, clothing and faeces released by swimmers
Summary
Water occupies about 70% of the earth surface and is considered the largest natural resource around us. There are reports that swimming pools can be vehicles for the transmission of infectious diseases throughout the world (Sule et al, 2010). This means that with all the excitements the average Ghanaian attaches to swimming and the health benefits derived from using the swimming pools, if care and additional precautions are not taken, they could be exposed to harmful microbes. Contamination can come from pets especially dogs that occasionally wander around these swimming pools as well as from debris already around the properties. It could be as result of the direct animal contamination (e.g., from birds)
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