Diarrhea Outbreak Caused by Contaminated Water used for Vegetables Sale

• Main Authors: Farkhanda Afaque, Sarah Hafeez, Sarah Shafi, Fasiha Saeed, Sayyada Ghufrana Nadeem, Shazia Tabassum Hakim
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Jinnah University for Women 2013-01-01
• Series: RADS Journal of Biological Research & Applied Science
• Subjects: Membrane filter technique; Coliforms
• Online Access: http://jbas.juw.edu.pk/index.php/JBAS/article/view/35

Water has always played a prominent role in human civilization. The water sources used for supplying water were not always clean, and coliforms are the major source of diarrheal infections especially in developing countries and hence contaminated water is the main reason for the spread of these coliforms with in a community by different ways. The contamination of water used in vegetables by pathogens cause diarrheal disease is the most important aspect of vegetables quality. This problem arises as a consequence of contamination of water by faecal matter, particularly human faecal matter, containing pathogenic organisms. Vegetable sellers usually use dirty/contaminated water to shower on vegetables to keep them fresh. This study describes the outbreaks of diarrheal diseases along with the reasons for the outbreaks. In our study we have used Membrane filter technique to test the quality of water used by the vegetable sellers. Purpose of this study is to detect the presence of coliforms which is associated with diarrheal infections due to fecal contamination. We examined the water samples by Membrane filter method in which we use 0.45µm filter paper which was soaked in peptone water and incubated at 37 oC for 24 hours, this peptone water was further streaked on MacConkey and EMB media. Additional identification of microorganisms was done by microscopy and biochemical tests. Observed results revealed that the water is fecally contaminated and the microorganisms isolated were as with described percentages E.coli 12%, Klebsiella 40%, Proteus 44%, Pseudomonas 20%, Shigella 8%, Salmonella 4% and Enterobacter 4% who are the members of coliforms. This study helps in the identification of coliform from different sources which lead to a cause of diarrheal infection