Quality of Water and Antibiotic Resistance of Escherichia coli from Water Sources of Hilly Tribal Villages with and without Integrated Watershed Management—A One Year Prospective Study

Sandeep S. Nerkar, Ashok J. Tamhankar, Smita U. Khedkar and Cecilia Stålsby Lundborg
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Sandeep S. Nerkar: Department of Public Health Sciences, Global Health (IHCAR), Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, SE 17177, Sweden
Ashok J. Tamhankar: Department of Public Health Sciences, Global Health (IHCAR), Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, SE 17177, Sweden
Smita U. Khedkar: Bac-test Laboratory, College Road, Nashik, 422005, India
Cecilia Stålsby Lundborg: Department of Public Health Sciences, Global Health (IHCAR), Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, SE 17177, Sweden

IJERPH, 2014, vol. 11, issue 6, 1-15

Abstract: In many hilly tribal areas of the world, water scarcity is a major problem and diarrhoea is common. Poor quality of water also affects the environment. An integrated watershed management programme (IWMP) aims to increase availability of water and to improve life conditions. Globally, there is a lack of information on water contamination, occurrence of diarrhoea and antibiotic resistance, a serious global concern, in relation to IWMP in hilly tribal areas. Therefore, a prospective observational study was conducted during 2011–2012 in six villages in a hilly tribal belt of India, three with and three without implementation of an IWMP, to explore quality of water, diarrhoeal cases in the community and antibiotic resistance of Escherichia coli from water sources. The results showed that physico-chemical quality of water was within limits of safe consumption in all samples. The odds of coliform contamination in water samples was 2.3 times higher in non-watershed management villages (NWMV) compared to integrated watershed management villages (IWMV) (95% CI 0.8–6.45, p = 0.081). The number of diarrhoeal cases (18/663 vs. 42/639, p < 0.05) was lower in IWMV as compared to NWMV. Overall E. coli isolates showed high susceptibility to antibiotics. Resistance to a wider range of antibiotics was observed in NWMV.

Keywords: integrated watershed management; hilly tribal region; water quality; E. coli contamination; antibiotic resistance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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