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

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 boreholes water supplies within Bosso town. Ten (10) water samples of borehole were aseptically collected from Bosso Town and analyzed using membrane filtration technique, to isolate both faecal and total coliform. The results obtained showed that most (60.0%) of the water samples from the boreholes sources except the samples from Bosso Lowcost, Anguwan Tukura, Okada Road, Bosso Estate, contained 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 (20%) followed in descending order by Salmonella typhi (14.2%), Staphylococcus aureus (12.8%), Shigella flexneri (11.4%), Clostridium difficile (8.5), Streptococcus feacalis (7.1%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (7.1%), Klebsiella pneumoniae(5.7%), Streptococcus pyrogenes (4.2%), Bacillus subtilis (2.8%), Proteus vulgaris (2.8%), Yersinia spp (1.4%) and Serratia spp (1.4%). This study reveals that borehole water samples were contaminated, with the highest percentage of faecal and total coliform contamination observed as 25.9%(Bosso Central) and 0.56%(Maikunkele) respectively. This therefore highlights the need for a continuous assessment of the quality of public water supply and intervention measures to prevent outbreak of water-borne diseases.