Impact of chlorination on the microbiological quality of drinking water in school area: case study of Central North Region in Burkina Faso

Abstract

In Burkina Faso, despite the realization of drilling, the consumption of safe drinking water remains a major concern in rural school area. To guarantee the consumption of safe drinking water, the project namely "koom-yilma" was opted for the chlorination of water with “Mini-WATA” in rural school area in Central-North region in Burkina Faso. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of this program in nine schools few months after its implementation. Thus, different water samples were analyzed following the membrane filtration method with specific culture media to identify and count fecal coliforms, E. coli and fecal streptococci. The results compared with those obtained before the program showed the efficiency of the intervention. Indeed, 40.45% of water samples from students was safe versus 5.05% before the intervention according to the WHO standard. For the 59.55% contaminated water, the number of fecal bacteria was low compared with untreated water. Despite this good results, the percentage of contaminated water still high in some schools because of lack of hygiene. Thus, the improvement of hygiene practices is necessary to ensure the microbiological quality of drinking water in addition to chlorination.

Keywords: Drinking water, Mini-WATA, chlorine, disinfection, hygiene, school area.