Abstract
Over 2 billion people, or half of the world’s population, have suffered from diseases due to drinking polluted waters (Barabas, 1986). More than 250 million new cases of waterborne disease are reported each year, resulting in more than 10 million deaths and nearly 75% of these waterborne disease cases occur in tropical areas. Indeed, nearly 50% of diarrheal disease deaths (4.6 million) occur in children under 5 years of age, living in the tropics (Snyder and Merson, 1982; Bockemühl, 1985). Many investigators and government administrators assume that the high morbidity and mortality rates simply indicate the level of contamination of water in tropical areas. However, determining biological contamination in tropical source water is much more difficult than most regulatory agencies perceive. Yet, the need to accurately determine the level of biological contamination is much greater in tropical areas than it is in temperate areas since these regions have a much greater number of waterborne diseases (Table 2.1 and 2.2). In turn, these diseases are exacerbated by the lack of adequate sewage treatment and a greater reliance on untreated (and possibly contaminated) waters as drinking water sources (Feachem, 1977; Esrey et al., 1985).
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Hazen, T.C., Toranzos, G.A. (1990). Tropical Source Water. In: McFeters, G.A. (eds) Drinking Water Microbiology. Brock/Springer Series in Contemporary Bioscience. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-4464-6_2
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