Effects Of Microbiological Pollution Of Drinking Water On Human Health And Remedy

For healthy existence of mankind, safe drinking water is an essential commodity. But now-a-days polluted water cause many health concerns worldwide. Among these acute gastrointestinal and diarrheal illnesses continue to be the major water borne diseases, which may be caused by bacteria, viruses and parasites. Unsafe and contaminated water in the distribution system is responsible for occurrence of many reported diarrhoeal disease outbreaks. Other disease may also be caused by an aquatic host like cyclops and snails.International standards for drinking water relate various water quality variables, which are not mandatory limits and may be modified according to the needs of any country. Among all variables, microbiological pollutants draw special attention due to their widespread nature, immediate and acute effects. There are a number of acceptable indicators like total and fecal conform for microbiological monitoring of drinking water, which is in the distribution system after treatment, but they may not be acceptable for determining sanitary quality of rural water supplies, especially in tropical areas like India, where many bacteria of no significance occur almost in all untreated supplies. Under this circumstance midterm targets are set by national surveillance agency to determine the levels of water pollution which permits progressive economic, environmental and social developments without presenting health hazards.Special attention should be paid to enteric viruses contaminating drinking water. Essentially drinking water must be free from human enteric viruses. Bacteriophages, are used as indicators of water quality for enteric viruses, primarily as an index of sewage contamination. This is an additional indicator of treatment efficiency or ground water protection.Provision of safe drinking water is the most important step for improvement of the health in a community by preventing the spread of water borne diseases. In rural areas this could be done by monitoring of drinking water quality by detecting the presence of indicator organisms using simple kit test. Water surveillance is another important task of local and national health authority. Good communications between two bodies responsible for monitoring and surveillance are essential. Effective mutual exchange of activity and opinion can keep safety and acceptability of drinking water supply upto the expected level.