Abstract

The study was aimed at assessing the antibiotic susceptibility profile of bacteria isolated from recreational waters in Abraka community as well as the determination of physicochemical parameters and heavy metal contents of the waters. The sampled recreational waters were McCarthy, Rivotel and Mudi Beach, respectively. A total of thirty samples were collected and cultured using pour plate technique.Pure isolates obtained were subjected to susceptibility testing using commercial antibiotics disc by Kirby-Bauer method. Thirteen bacteria genera were isolated which included Staphylococcus sp., Escherichia coli, Proteus sp., Shigella sp., Bacillus sp., Klebsiella sp., Salmonella sp., Pseudomonas sp., Citrobacter sp., Enterobacter sp., Clostridium sp., Streptococcus sp. and Enterococcus sp. The total bacterial count ranged from 1.94 ± 0.46 to 2.21 ± 0.22 × 103cfu/ml for Rivotel and McCarthy beach respectively which showed a significant difference (p˂ 0.001) across sampling sites. Coliform counts ranged from 4.40 ± 0.33 to 5.94 ± 0.24 × 103. Antibiotic test of Gram positive bacterial isolates showed that ofloxacin (88%) and pefloxacin (88%) were the most susceptible antibiotics while Augmentin (0%) was the least sensitive antibiotic. Whereas the Gram positive antibiotic disc showed high level of potency to the isolates with erythromycin having the highest activity while zinnacef (60%) and gentamycin (60%) were the least active antibiotics from the study. Generally, the high bacteria and coliform counts observed in the study suggest possible contamination of the water samples which could pose dangerous health effects to their users.