Determination of Bacterial Quality of Water in Randomly Selected Swimming Pools in Kampala City, Uganda

Abstract

Swimming pools have become major recreation facilities for leisure and sports in cities across the world, but the standard guidelines, particularly in developing countries, are not adhered to because little is known about the contaminants in the pools and the possible health risks involved. This study provides a survey of bacterial quality of water from swimming pools in Kampala. A total of 26 water samples were collected from 13 outdoor swimming pools in Kampala between January and June 2016 and analysed for total aerobic plate count (TPC), Escherichia coli, coliforms, and Salmonella. The heterotrophic bacterial load ranged between 0 and 6.35 × 105 cfu/ml, where 6.35 × 105 cfu/ml was the highest load and 3 × 101 cfu/ml the least. The highest average TPC was 6.19 × 105 cfu/ml and the lowest 5.07 × 103 cfu/ml. 30.8% of the pools had TPC within acceptable limits (≤5 × 102 cfu/ml), whereas 69.2% were highly contaminated and did not conform to the Uganda National Water and Sewerage Corporation standards of recreational water quality for both treated (0 cfu/100 mls) water and untreated (10 cfu/100 mls) water. Although no positive results were yielded for E. coli, coliforms, and Salmonella, TPC represented the presence of heterotrophic bacteria which are often indicated in opportunistic infections.