Water quality indicators: Bacteria, coliphages, enteric viruses

Johnson Lin, Atheesha Ganesh

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

87 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Water quality through the presence of pathogenic enteric microorganisms may affect human health. Coliform bacteria, Escherichia coli and coliphages are normally used as indicators of water quality. However, the presence of above-mentioned indicators do not always suggest the presence of human enteric viruses. It is important to study human enteric viruses in water. Human enteric viruses can tolerate fluctuating environmental conditions and survive in the environment for long periods of time becoming causal agents of diarrhoeal diseases. Therefore, the potential of human pathogenic viruses as significant indicators of water quality is emerging. Human Adenoviruses and other viruses have been proposed as suitable indices for the effective identification of such organisms of human origin contaminating water systems. This article reports on the recent developments in the management of water quality specifically focusing on human enteric viruses as indicators.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)484-506
Number of pages23
JournalInternational Journal of Environmental Health Research
Volume23
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2013
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Coliphages
  • E. coli
  • Enteric viruses
  • Total/faecal coliforms
  • water quality indicators

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Pollution
  • Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
  • Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis

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