Bacteriological Quality of Bottled Drinking Water and Municipal Tap Water in Northeastern Ethiopia

Awoke Keleb,Tadesse Sisay,Ayechew Ademas,Metadel Adane,Mistir Lingerew

doi:10.3389/fenvs.2022.828335

Abstract

Objective: Water-borne diseases cause high morbidity and mortality in developing countries, like Ethiopia. Diarrheal disease and typhoid are one of the top five diseases that cause significant public health burden and economic cost in Dessie city. Thus, monitoring the quality of drinking water is crucial to prevent waterborne disease. This study aimed to determine the bacteriological quality of bottled drinking water and municipal tap water in Northeastern Ethiopia for proper planning, monitoring, and intervention purpose.Methods: A laboratory-based cross-sectional study was conducted on 248 municipal tap water samples from point of collection (MTPOC), 248 water samples from a household water storage container (HHSC), 38 bottled water samples before packaging from manufacturing facilities (BPMF), and 38 bottle water samples from point of sale (POS) in Dessie city between March 15 to May 15, 2021. Water samples were collected by trained data collectors using a standard sampling protocol. Data were entered into Microsoft Excel and exported to SPSS version 25.0 for data cleaning and analysis. The commonest microbiological parameters, total coliforms (TC) and Escherichia coli (E. coli) were tested using the standard procedure. One-way ANOVA was used to compare the mean log concentration of E. coli and TC between sampling points and the Tukey post hoc test was also computed to identify statistically significant differences among sample types. The 95% confidence interval [CI] and p &lt; 0.05 were taken as statistically significant.Results: About 15.8 and 36.8% of the samples from BPMF and 26.3 and 55.3% of samples from POS were positive for E. coli and TC respectively while 47.2 and 65.7% of water sample from MTPOC and 48.8 and 98.8% of samples from HHSC were positive for E. coli and TC respectively. The mean log concentration of E. coli from the sample of MTPOC was significantly higher than BPMF. Similarly, water samples from HHSC had significantly higher E. coli and TC concentrations than BPMF and POS. Water samples from HHSC had also a significantly higher prevalence of log concentrations of TC than MTPOC.Conclusion: Most values were beyond maximum tolerable limits recommended by World Health Organization (WHO). Thus, good water handling practices and water quality monitoring are essential to prevent bacteriological contamination.

Highlights

Access to good quality drinking water and sanitation services for all is an important public health and development issue, which is stated in Goal six of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), was endorsed by all nations globally
A good quality drinking water is potable water that is free from diseases producing microorganisms and chemical substances deleterious to health (WHO, 2011) but drinking water can be contaminated at any point in the chain from the source to the household container by a wide range of disease-causing waterborne pathogens (WHO/UNICEF, 2015; Leclerc et al, 2002).There is a significant concern among governments and international organizations that lack of access to improved water sources and inadequate monitoring of drinking water quality leads to consumption of unsafe water (Ashbolt, 2004; UNICEF and JMP, 2017)
This result was higher than study conducted in Teshie Nungua, Ghana indicated that 6.7 and 11.7% of a water sample contaminated with E. coli and total coliforms (TC) respectively (Addo et al, 2009), on the other hand the prevalence of E. coli contamination (15.8%) in this study was lower than E. coli detected in 29% water sample whereas total coliform contamination (36.9%) in this study was concordant with 38% of water sample contaminated with TC in Freetown, Sierra Leon (Falilu, 2018)

Summary

Introduction

Access to good quality drinking water and sanitation services for all is an important public health and development issue, which is stated in Goal six of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), was endorsed by all nations globally. A good quality drinking water is potable water that is free from diseases producing microorganisms and chemical substances deleterious to health (WHO, 2011) but drinking water can be contaminated at any point in the chain from the source to the household container by a wide range of disease-causing waterborne pathogens (WHO/UNICEF, 2015; Leclerc et al, 2002).There is a significant concern among governments and international organizations that lack of access to improved water sources and inadequate monitoring of drinking water quality leads to consumption of unsafe water (Ashbolt, 2004; UNICEF and JMP, 2017). This is because no matter its sources, bottled water is susceptible to microbial contamination (Okagbue and Dlamini, 2002; Ehlers et al, 2004; Addo et al, 2009; Semerjian, 2011; Oludario and Aiyedun, 2015; Narayan Dutt et al, 2016)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion