Water 2014, 6(5), 1100-1117; doi:10.3390/w6051100
Diarrhoeal Health Risks Attributable to Water-Borne-Pathogens in Arsenic-Mitigated Drinking Water in West Bengal are Largely Independent of the Microbiological Quality of the Supplied Water
1
School of Earth Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
2
Molecular and Human Genetics Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, 4, Raja S.C. Mullick Road, Kolkata 700032, West Bengal, India
3
School of Environment and Life Sciences, University of Salford, Manchester M5 4WT, UK
4
Department of Statistics, University of Calcutta, 35 Ballygunge Circular Road, Kolkata 700019, West Bengal, India
5
Proteomic and Cell Signaling Lab, CSIR-Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Habsiguda, Uppal Road, Hyderabad 500007, Andhra Pradesh, India
6
Department of Physiology, University of Alberta, 7-10 Medical Sciences, Edmonton AB T6G 2H7, Canada
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 15 January 2014 / Revised: 1 April 2014 / Accepted: 16 April 2014 / Published: 29 April 2014
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Treatment and Human Health)
Abstract
There is a growing discussion about the possibility of arsenic mitigation measures in Bengal and similar areas leading to undesirable substitution of water-borne-pathogen attributable risks pathogens for risks attributable to arsenic, in part because of uncertainties in relative pathogen concentrations in supplied and end-use water. We try to resolve this discussion, by assessing the relative contributions of water supply and end-user practices to water-borne-pathogen-attributable risks for arsenic mitigation options in a groundwater arsenic impacted area of West Bengal. Paired supplied arsenic-mitigated water and end-use drinking water samples from 102 households were collected and analyzed for arsenic and thermally tolerant coliforms [TTC], used as a proxy for microbiological water quality, We then estimated the DALYs related to key sequelae, diarrheal diseases and cancers, arising from water-borne pathogens and arsenic respectively. We found [TTC] in end-use drinking water to depend only weakly on [TTC] in source-water. End-user practices far outweighed the microbiological quality of supplied water in determining diarrheal disease burden. [TTC] in source water was calculated to contribute <1% of total diarrheal disease burden. No substantial demonstrable pathogen-for-arsenic risk substitution attributable to specific arsenic mitigation of supplied waters was observed, illustrating the benefits of arsenic mitigation measures in the area studied.Keywords:
arsenic in groundwater; mitigation; water-borne pathogens; health risk substitution; disease burden; West Bengal
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MDPI and ACS Style
Mondal, D.; Ganguli, B.; Roy, S.S.; Halder, B.; Banerjee, N.; Banerjee, M.; Samanta, M.; Giri, A.K.; Polya, D.A. Diarrhoeal Health Risks Attributable to Water-Borne-Pathogens in Arsenic-Mitigated Drinking Water in West Bengal are Largely Independent of the Microbiological Quality of the Supplied Water. Water 2014, 6, 1100-1117.