Microbiology Analysis of Drinking Water
Drinking water supplies are prone to contamination with sewage or other excreted matter may cause outbreaks of intestinal infections such as typhoid fever. Monitoring and detection of indicator and disease-causing micro-organisms are a major part of sanitary microbiology. By chlorinating drinking water supplies, control of most major disease-causing bacteria can be obtained.
The major concern is about the inability to consistently remove viruses and protozoa and to achieve quality standards for these micro-organisms. Bacteriological tests must be performed constantly to ensure that drinking water supplies are safe for human consumption.
Primarily contamination of water with human fecal wastes would result in viral, bacterial, and protozoan diseases. Although many of these pathogens can be detected directly, environmental microbiologists have generally used indicator organisms as an index of possible water contamination by human pathogens.
Researchers are still trying to establish the ideal indicator organism to use in sanitary microbiology. The following are among the suggested criteria for such an indicator:
1. The indicator bacterium should be suitable for the analysis of all types of water: tap river, ground, impounded, recreational, estuary, sea, and waste.
2. The indicator bacterium should be present whenever enteric pathogens are present.
3. The indicator bacterium should survive longer than the hardiest enteric pathogen.
4. The indicator bacterium should not reproduce in the contaminated water and produce an inflated value.
5. The detailed procedure for the indicator should have great specificity; i.e. other bacteria should not give positive results.
In addition, the procedure should have considerable sensitivity and detection of the level of indicator.