Water supplies in some rural communities around Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria: bacteriology of drinking waters.

ABSTRACT

Several communities in Nigeria exist without regular water supplies of good quality and quantity. Despite this situation, successive governments have tended to ignore the problem. The water supplies to two rural communities 7-8 km north of Calabar, Cross River State of Nigeria, were examined bacteriologically using standard indicator bacteria (coliforms and streptococci). A contiguous community supplied with treated piped water was also studied in parallel. The rural water supplied was found to be bacteriologically unsatisfactory, having failed to meet the international standards for drinking water as set by the WHO. The geometric mean bacterial counts per 100 ml of serial samples from six sources ranged from 0.12 x 10(1) to 1.57 x 10(2) for fecal coliforms (E. col) and 0.05 x 10(1) to 7.5 x 10(1) for the fecal streptococci. Fecal streptococci were particularly recovered in large numbers from one source (Ayip Asikimangfuk) at concentrations of up to 3.0 x 10(2) per 100 ml at the onset of the rains. The water supplies from the community with piped water were, in general, bacteriologically satisfactory; fecal coliforms were found only in occasional samples (0.12 x 10(1)/100 ml).