Abstract
Water contaminated with harmful pathogen and due to the lack of access to safe drinking water can cause various health defects like infection, water born disease and undesirable appearance of water. This study is focused to determine the microbial quality of drinking water in Chittagong University campus which is one of the mostly populated University in Bangladesh. To determine the microbial quality of drinking water, water was collected from three highly populated place of the campus and the sampling sites were canteen of Biological Science Faculty, Deshnetri Begum Khaleda Zia Hall and Canteen near Shahid Minar. For collecting water samples three random place were selected from those collection sites and water samples were collected using standard procedure for three consecutive days. The temperature and pH was measured at the sampling site; for checking bacteriological parameters (total coliform and fecal coliform) were tested for each sample and their potential for health hazard were measured. Average viable bacterial count in the samples were 13.19×10 6 , 9.32 ×10 6 and 9.7×10 6 respectively in sample 1, sample 2 and sample 3. The results of the study demonstrated that physicochemical and bacteriological quality of water at sources was not up to the mark. But water from canteen near Shahid Minar (Sample 3) has a very high risk of infection as the number of coliform is >1100 and fecal coliform ≅93 and Salmonella was present in that place, demonstrated that water from this site is not safe for drinking. Also Salmonella was found in drinking water sample of canteen of Biological Science Faculty (Sample 1). Possible cause of water contamination may be the irrational practice of drawing water from pipe by suction, improper layout of water supply lines and sewer there might be crossing between them and poor hygienic practice and illiteracy of workers of canteen people. It is recommended that to carryout regular monitoring, crosscheck of the water supply lines.
Highlights
Safe water for human consumption is outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as water that does not cause a substantial hazard to human health while its consumption (World Health Organization, 2004a) [1]
Lack of well equipped laboratories, weak institutional arrangements, and the absence of a legal framework for Frontiers in Environmental Microbiology 2019; 5(1): 8-13 drinking-water quality issues have aggravated the situation though the government is trying to solve the situation and which is not enough
Citrate utilization can be used to distinguish between coliforms such as Enterobacter and fecal coliforms such as Escherichia coli whose presence would be indicative of fecal contamination and it is done by following standard procedure
Summary
Safe water for human consumption is outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as water that does not cause a substantial hazard to human health while its consumption (World Health Organization, 2004a) [1]. Other gastro-intestinal diseases like diarrhea are caused by pathogens that are water-borne either are carried through the medium of water. These diseases account for nearly a quarter of all illnesses in Bangladesh -nearly 12% by diarrhea, and 10% by other gastro-intestinal illness including enteric fever. The University of Chittagong is one of the largest University of Bangladesh with total students of approximately 25,000 with little opportunity to live in University Hall and most of them manage to live outside, is one of the major reasons to have potential health risk by drinking contaminated water from outside. Our main objective is: (1) to evaluate the quality of drinking water outside University Hall and (2) to suggest preventive measures for the improvement of the quality of drinking water in the campus area
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