Quality assessment and prevalence of antibiotic resistant bacteria in government approved mini-water schemes in Southwest, Nigeria

Availability and accessibility of potable water is fundamental to human health. In Nigeria, access to clean and safe water is still a huge challenge. This study investigated the microbiological quality of source water, drinking water and distributed water in fourteen government approved mini-water schemes in Osun State, Nigeria. Enumeration and characterization of total heterotrophic bacteria, coliforms and pathogens were done with standard procedures. Isolated bacteria were tested for susceptibility to thirteen antibiotics using the disk diffusion techniques. Three hundred and thirty bacteria were identified as β-proteobacteria (4), γ-proteobacteria (231), Firmicutes (90) and Actinobacter (5). The isolated pathogenic bacteria genera from the source and drinking water include Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas, Enterobacter, Escherichia and Klebsiella. All isolates exhibited varying degrees of resistance to the antibiotics with the highest to ampicillin (80.9%) lowest to rifampicin (2.1%). Most strains (288/330) were resistant to at least one antibiotic while 255 of 330 were resistant to three to eight antibiotics. Multiple antibiotic resistant bacteria were detected in all types of water samples. The presence of pathogens and antibiotic resistant bacteria potentially puts the health of the community members relying on these schemes as their drinking water at risk.