Comparative assessment of the sanitary and epidemic importance of сoliform indicators of the drinking water quality

Introduction. The criteria used for the sanitary-bacteriological assessment of the quality of tap water should ensure its epidemic safety, which is important when choosing priority indicator microorganisms, quantitative determination of which will allow characterizing the risk of intestinal infections associated with water use conditions with sufficient reliability.

Material and methods. Analyzed water studies for 10 years for the presence of sanitary-indicative bacteria in the water of surface water bodies in accordance with the guidelines MUK 4.2.1884. To isolate and quantify Salmonella, there were used the conventional magnesium medium and the developed nutrient medium, ready for use. The obtained data were processed using the statistical software package Statistic for Windows.

Results. It has been established that E.coli can be considered as an additional indicator in order to assess recent fecal contamination. The absence of E.coli in drinking water does not guarantee the absence of other members of the family Enterobacteriaceae. Pathogenic and potentially pathogenic bacteria exhibited the greatest viability. E. coli turned out to be less stable, i.e. microorganisms, on an indication of which the system of sanitary and epidemic safety of the water use was built. In the experiments, lactose-positive coliform bacteria were established to be less resistant to the action of disinfecting agents than salmonella and potentially pathogenic bacteria, which should not be inherent to the indicator microorganism.

Conclusion. Research results indicate that the absence of normalized lactose-positive fecal indicators fails to guarantee the absence of infectious agents since lactose-negative enterobacteria are unaccounted for — pathogenic and potentially pathogenic species causing intestinal infections. Therefore, in the sanitary-bacteriological control of tap water, it is more expedient to focus on the indicator glucose coliform bacteria (GKB).