RESEARCH ARTICLE
Mycological and Bacteriological Quality and Safety of Bottled Water in Ethiopia
Tesfaye L. Bedada1, *, Firehiwot A. Dera1, Redwan M. Edicho1, Samson G. Gebre1, Yosef B. Asefa2, Waktole G. Sima1, Rahel F. Maheder1, Tigist Y. Negassi1, Almaz G. Biegna1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2018Volume: 12
First Page: 200
Last Page: 208
Publisher ID: TOMICROJ-12-200
DOI: 10.2174/1874285801812010200
Article History:
Received Date: 14/03/2018Revision Received Date: 29/05/2018
Acceptance Date: 04/06/2018
Electronic publication date: 29/06/2018
Collection year: 2018
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
Safe water supply is vital and can result in significant benefits to health. However, contaminated bottled water poses a great health risk due to the poor microbiological quality of water.
Methods and Materials:
A retrospective study was conducted on 222 Bottled water samples collected from various regions of Ethiopia from January 2008 to December 2015, tested and recorded in Ethiopian Public Health Institute to determine heterotrophic plate count and Staphylococcus aureus by pour plate method; for coliforms using multiple tubes fermentation techniques; for mould and yeast count using spread method, and for Salmonellae and Shigella spp. using ES ISO 6579 and ES ISO 21567. The data was analyzed using SPSS 20 statistical package.
Results:
Among the total samples examined from 44 brands, detections of heterotrophic plate count, mould, yeast, total and thermotolerant coliforms, Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus were observed in 114 (51.4%), 33 (14.9%), 5 (2.3%), 2 (0.9%), 1 (0.5%), 1 (0.5%) and 1 (0.5%) samples respectively, but there were no detections of Salmonellae nor Shigellae species.
Conclusion:
About 40% of bottled water samples were mycologically and bacteriologically unsafe for human consumption. To prevent public health hazards, regular monitoring of bottled water using quality indicators should be a priority agenda.
