Bacteriological Safety of Swimming Pools Within and Around the University of Port Harcourt

Abstract

The swimming pool is an essential place of recreation. However, these pools can pose significant public hazard for swimmers, especially when contagious levels exceed those recommended by regulatory agencies. Five different swimming pools in and around the University of Port Harcourt, Choba, Rivers State, were investigated before and after usage for their microbial safety and susceptibility of bacterial isolates from the different swimming pools. Ten water samples from the swimming pools were serially diluted and dilution factors of up to 10-3 were cultured on the appropriate agar media, using the spread plate method. The mean coliform and fecal coliform counts ranged from <2 to 50MPN/100 ml and <2 to 17MPN/100 ml, respectively. The total heterotrophic bacterial count ranged from 3.80 to 4.76 log10cfu/ml. The resulting bacteria isolates were identified based on the morphological, physiological and biochemical characteristics as Bacillus spp. (36%), Proteus spp. (28%), Citrobacter spp. (12%), Staphylococcus spp. (4%), Micrococcus spp. (4%), Providencia spp. (4%), Pseudomonas spp. (4%), Escherichia spp. (4%) and Salmonella spp. (4%). The isolated bacteria have varying resistance against gentamycin, augmentin, amoxicillin, carbapenem, cefuroxime, ceftriaxone and cefixime. The presence of coliform, fecal coliform and antibiotic resistant bacteria revealed that the examined swimming pools have not met the World Health Organization (WHO) standard for recreational waters, thus necessitating prompt and effective intervention.