Abstract

Water is an essential natural resource needed to maintain basic health, sanitation and is believed to be an elixir of life. Among the rural population of developing countries, only 22% have reasonable amount of safe water supply and only 15% had waste disposal facilities. The cases of salmonellosis and typhoid fever have been increasing in recent years. Subsequently, a large proportion of Dutse inhabitants use sachet water as their main source of drinking water hence, the need to examine the microbiological quality of these sachet water. This study was conducted to determine the bacteriological quality of some sachet water sold in Dutse Metropolis. Ten different brands of sachet water were selected at random from vendors for a period of 5 weeks (March- April 2019). A total of 50 samples were purchased from retailers, labelled and transported to Microbiology laboratory in the department of microbiology and biotechnology, Federal University, Dutse for microbiological examination. The highest Aerobic Mesophilic Bacterial Count (AMBC) was obtained in sample F (2.76 ×10 1 cfu/ml), while sample D showed the least count (0.08 ×10 1 cfu/ml). Selected coliforms: Escherichia coli, Salmonella spp. and Shigella spp. were found to be absent in all the samples. These were below the standard of the regulatory agencies WHO, FAO and NAFDAC of 1.2 × 10 2 cfu/ml for AMBC and less than 1 coliform bacteria per 100ml of drinking water and are therefore considered fit for human consumption. Frequent microbiological assessment complemented with molecular methods should be employed to detect the presence of these pathogenic micro-organisms along-side physiochemical analyses of some parameters as they might influence the growth of few organisms if present.