A Survey of Bacteriological Quality of Well Water from various Locations in Bosso Town, North Central, Nigeria

Abstract

ABSTRACT The importance of water cannot be over emphasised as it serves a vital role in sustaining the lives of living organisms especially human but is also a major route in the transmission of human diseases since certain pathogens which are capable of causing life-threatening disease survive in water. This study was carried out to determine the coliform contamination of public well water supplies within Bosso town. Ten (10) well water samples samples were aseptically collected from Bosso Town and analyzed using membrane filtration technique. The results obtained showed that all (100.0%) of the water samples from the well sources had coliform counts above 10cfu/100ml.The organisms isolated included species of Escherichia, Pseudomonas, Streptococcus, Staphylococcus, Salmonella, Shigella, Clostridium, Bacillus, Yersinia, Serratia e.t.c. E.coli had the highest frequency of occurrence (24.4%) followed in descending order by Helicobacter pylori (13.3%), Staphylococcus aureus (10.0%), Salmonella typhi (8.9 %), Shigella flexneri(6.7%), Streptococcus faecalis (5.6%), Streptococcus pyogenes (5.6%), Campylobacter jenuni (4.4%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (4.4%), Bacillus subtilis (4.4%), Proteus mirabilis(4.4%), Klebsiella pneumoniae (3.3%), Proteus vulgaris (3.3%) and Yersinia enterocolitica (1.1%). This study reveals that well water samples were contaminated. This highlights the need for a continuous assessment of the quality of public water supply and intervention measures to prevent outbreak of water-borne diseases.