Investigating Groundwater Contamination Following the Disposal of Hospital Wastes in a Government Reserved Area, Enugu, Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigated the probable contamination of groundwater following hospital wastes disposal in a Government Reserved Area, Enugu, Nigeria. The ground water samples were collected from three distinct locations denoted as GW, GW and GW at distances of about 100, 200 and 350 m respectively from the hospital location. The samples were collected during the dry season (December 2015, January and February 2016) and wet season (June, July and August 2016) and analyzed with standard procedures. The level of contamination of groundwater in the area was generally higher in the wet season than in dry season. The degree of contamination varies with distance and hence in the following order GW > GW > GW in both seasons. The study revealed the presence of both pathogenic and non-pathogenic organisms and values of the determined physicochemical ranged from (0.02 ± 0.01-272 ± 2.22 mg/L) in both seasons. The hospital management should develop effective ways to manage their wastes to protect the environment and public health.

Isolation and Culture Dependent Characterization of Escherichia coli from the Sewage Waste Water of Lahore, Pakistan

“…1). Sample 5 and 9 gave the highest CFU/ml i.e., 3x10 6 and 3.2x10 6 , respectively The lowest CFU/ml was observed in the sample 3 i.e., 5×10 1 . On the selective media Hichrome EC O157 agar, 56 bacterial strains were isolated.…”

“…Environment and public health is at great risk due to occurrence of large number of pathogenic organisms. The major source of potable water in developing countries is ground water reservoirs due to long retention time and natural retention capacity of aquifers, but they can be contaminated due to poor sanitation [6].…”

Monitoring hospital effluents through physico‐chemical characterization and genotoxic testing

“…Microorganisms act as the indicators of water quality and determine the particular pathogens and their relative risk in wastewater (Shajari et al, 2022). For example, fecal Streptococci and Escherichia coli are the indicators of fecal contamination and bacteriophages for viral contamination (Eze et al, 2016). In this study, microbes were identified by using the standard methods of sampling and microbiological examination of water (IS 1622, 1981; IS 15187, 2002).…”

“…In many countries, recycling of wastewater becomes an important aspect of water resource management, and countries have adopted national policies to recycle treated wastewater for various purposes like agriculture, gardening, and cleaning. The treated wastewater recycling becomes increasingly important and necessary due to increased climate change, droughts, and water scarcity (Eze et al, 2016), but at the same time, it is risky to use the recycled waters specially when it comes from health care establishments because it may pose serious health problems to the environment, human, and animals. Monitoring, therefore, becomes of utmost importance (Parashar et al, 2022) wherein quality of water can be checked at different times in a year and its toxicity testing should be done from time to time (Fahrenfeld et al, 2022).…”

SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater: Challenges for developing countries

“…Further, in absence of proper solid waste disposal systems and longer viral stability on solid surfaces (up to days), contamination of surface water from domestic or hospital waste is not unlikely ( Nghiem, 2020 ). Studies conducted in African nations suggest river contamination due to direct or indirect discharge of clinical wastes ( Bedada et al, 2019 ; Eze et al, 2017 ). Similar cases of groundwater contamination from dumping site consisting hospital waste, slaughterhouse, dairy farm, poultry, and fish market have been reported in villages of Asian countries ( Samadder et al, 2017 ; Hoqueei et al, 2019 ).…”