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Disease Transmission in Water

8

8.1 Disease Transmission Through
Drinking Water

Long before the demonstration that water was a vehicle
of disease, man sometimes suspected it. Following an
outbreak of cholera in 1854 in London, England, a
commission was set up under the chairmanship of John
Snow, an anesthetist. This commission which reported
a year later, in 1855, for the first time established a
casual relationship between water and the transmis-
sion of bacterial disease. It was found by the commis-
sion that the epidemic was restricted to a particular
area of London where the inhabitants drank from a
well into which sewage entered from a nearby sewer
(Cliff and Haggett 1988 ). A similar and more recent
study (Pineo and Subrahmanyam 1975 ) carried out in
Malawi in March 1974 showed that by simply directing

water in a piped system, which though untreated came

from high in the mountain, a dramatically different

picture of cholera distribution occurred (see Fig. 8.1).

The great majority of evident water-related health

problems are the result of microbial (bacteriological,

viral, protozoan, or other biological) contamination

(see Table 8.1). Nevertheless, as will be seen below, an

appreciable number of serious health concerns may

also occur as a result of the chemical contamination of

drinking-water.

Crude sewage is one of the most important pollut-

ants of water. Besides supplying organic nutrients, it

frequently contains the agents causing enteric infec-

tious diseases in man. In general terms, the greatest

microbial enteric disease risks are associated with

ingestion of water that is contaminated with human or

animal (including bird) feces. Feces can thus be a

Abstract

Disease transmission through water can occur through drinking water contaminated

with microorganisms causing disease, through inhalation of aerosols of water

at swimming pools, or through air-conditioners, or finally through contact in

swimming pools. Diseases transmitted through drinking water include bacterial

diseases (cholera, dysentery, typhoid, gastrointestinal disorders by E. coli, Yersinia,

and Campylobacter), viruses (hepatitis A and E), and protozoan and helminth

parasites (Cryptosporidium, Giardia, Entamoeba). Inhalation of aerosols can lead

to Legionnaires’ disease and tuberculosis, while persons with open wounds can

contact infections by Aeromonas and non-tubercular mycobacteria.

Keywords

Atypical tuberculosis • Cholera • Cryptosporidiosis • Cyanotoxins • Disease trans-

mission drinking water • Disease transmission recreational waters • Enteroviruses

• Legionella • Parasitic worms • Shigellosis • Tuberculosis

N. Okafor, Environmental Microbiology of Aquatic and Waste Systems,
DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1460-1_8, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011