Microbial and metal water quality in rain catchments compared with traditional drinking water sources in the East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea

摘要

In Papua New Guinea, a significant portion of morbidity and mortality is attributed to water-bornendiseases. To reduce incidence of disease, communities and non-governmental organizations haveninstalled rain catchments to provide drinking water of improved quality. However, little work hasnbeen done to determine whether these rain catchments provide drinking water of better qualitynthan traditional drinking water sources, and if morbidity is decreased in villages with rainncatchments. The specific aim of this study was to evaluate the quality of water produced by rainncatchments in comparison with traditional drinking water sources in rural villages in the EastnSepik Province. Fifty-four water sources in 22 villages were evaluated for enterococci andnEscherichia coli densities as well as 14 health-relevant metals. In addition, we examined how thenprevalence of diarrhoeal illness in villages relates to the type of primary drinking water source.nThe majority of tested metals were below World Health Organization safety limits. Catchmentnwater sources had lower enterococci and E. coli than other water sources. Individuals in villagesnusing Sepik River water as their primary water source had significantly higher incidence ofndiarrhoea than those primarily using other water sources (streams, dug wells and catchments).