Estimating the Risk of Acute Gastrointestinal Disease Attributed to E. coli O157:H7 in Irrigation Water and Agricultural Soil: A Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment

Abstract

Introduction: The occurrence of E. coli O157:H7 in the agricultural environment poses a serious threat to public health. The primary aim was to estimate the probability of illness caused by E. coli O157:H7 in irrigation water and agricultural soil niches. Methods: The Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment was used and the risks were characterized using the Monte Carlo simulation with 10,000 iterations. Results: The mean levels of E. coli O157:H7 in the irrigation water and agricultural soil samples was 1.328 × 103 CFU/100 mL (Range: 0.00 to 13.000 × 103 CFU/100 mL) and 2.482 × 103 CFU/g (Range: 0.167 × 103 to 16.333 × 103 CFU/g), respectively. The risk of infection in humans exposed to this water and soil was 100%. In addition, a high risk of acute diarrheal disease was estimated at 25.0 × 10−2 for humans exposed to contaminated water and/or soil. Summary: These results exceeded the WHO diarrheal disease risk standard of 1.0 × 10−3. These findings demonstrated a high probability of acute gastrointestinal disease among humans exposed to E. coli O157:H7 in irrigation water and agricultural soil samples collected from the study sites representing a huge public health threat.

Passion, Education, and Creativity and Their Effects on Entrepreneurial Intention

“…Thus, in recent years, researchers have come to realize the importance of the relationship between EE and EI. Some studies pointed out the positive impact of EE on students' EI (Iwu et al, 2021;Wu et al, 2022), however, other studies indicated the opposite situation, when EE failed to promote the EI of the students surveyed. (Nabi et al, 2018).…”