P. SAHOTA, G. PANDOVE AND S. JAIRATH
Abstract
Drinking water is ranked as food and high standards are set for the quality and safety. Every year about 13 million people in developing regions of the world die because of unsafe water and inadequate sanitation and 1.1 billion persons lack access to safe drinking water. Human faecal contamination is the main cause of the water borne diseases. Significant Coliforrns organisms are Enterobacter spp., Klebsiella spp, Citrobacter spp. and Escherichia co/i. In the recent years emerging pathogens like E.coli 0157:H7, Yersinia entrocolitica, Campylobacter jejuni, Legionella spp, Aeromonas spp, have arisen as problem in drinking water sources and distribution pipes. Properly designed analytical programme, carefully executed to detect Coliforms bacteria with in drinking Water system have been of value in monitoring the effectiveness of the treatment practices as well as intrusion of the contaminated water. Occurrence of the Coliforms in finished drinking water in the absence of known breaches of treatment is a major critical regulatory issue which is attributed to the sloughing of biofilrns Coliform. Aim should be to develop single alternative multiplex water testing kit and single treatment which should be economical, reliable and safe.