This documented is intended to be a more digestible summary of the WHO Guidelines Vol. 3 for use by practitioners in the development and public health fields. Choices made in paraphrasing this content and in the omission of certain sections do not reflect the views of the WHO and CDC.
The structure of this document reflects key stages in the development of a surveillance program. It proceeds from planning (Chapter 2) to the collection of data from sanitary inspections and water quality testing (Chapters 3 and 4) to the analysis of said data (Chapter 5) and finally to the remedial actions which may be taken as a result of the surveillance program (Chapters 7 and 8).
For the purposes of this guide, the term “communities” applies not only to villages and small private water supplies in rural areas but also to other centers of population within, or in close proximity to, urban centers.
If the performance of a community water-supply system is to be properly evaluated, a number of factors must be considered. Some countries that have developed national strategies for the surveillance and quality control of water supply systems have adopted quantitative service indicators for application at community, regional and national levels.
These usually include:
Together, these five service indicators provide the basis for setting targets for community water supplies. They serve as a quantitative guide to the comparative efficiency of water-supply agencies and provide consumers with an objective measure of the quality of the overall service and thus the degree of public health protection afforded.
In most countries the principal risks to human health associated with the consumption of polluted water are microbiological in nature (although the importance of chemical contamination should not be underestimated).
The risk of acquiring a waterborne infection increases with the level of contamination by pathogenic microorganisms. However, the relationship is not necessarily a simple one and depends very much on factors such as infectious dose and host susceptibility. Drinking-water is only one vehicle for disease transmission. Some agents may be transmitted primarily from person to person and, for bacteria capable of multiplication in food, foodborne transmission may be more important than transmission by drinking-water.
However, pathogens of major concern like *Salmonella Typhi and Vibrio Cholera are frequently transmitted via contaminated drinking-water and, where this is the case, improvements in drinking-water quality may result in substantial reductions in disease prevalence.
Ideally, drinking-water should not contain any microorganisms known to be pathogenic-capable of causing disease-or any bacteria indicative of faecal pollution. To ensure that a drinking-water supply satisfies these guidelines, samples should be examined regularly. The detection of Escherichia coli provides definite evidence of fecal pollution (not necessarily from humans); in practice, the detection of thermotolerant (fecal) coliform bacteria is an acceptable alternative. (Need to update this last bit, thermotolerant / fecal coliforms now recognized as not that great of FIB.)
The WHO guideline for all water intended for drinking and in/entering the distribution system is that E. coli and thermotolerant coliforms must not be detectable in any 100-ml sample of water. However, it is important to note that the absence of E. coli and thermotolerant coliforms in a water samples DOES NOT indicate an absence of pathogens (protozoa in particular are more resistant to chlorine disinfection than bacteria). Rather, the quantification of bacteriological indicators can provide an important signal of process efficiency and the relative risk of different water supplies.
Terminal disinfection is essential for surface waters after treatment and for protected groundwater sources when E. coLi or thermotolerant (faecal) coliforms are detected. Chlorine in one form or another is the most commonly used disinfectant worldwide.
For terminal chlorination, there should be a free chlorine residual of at least 0.5 mg/liter after a minimum contact time of 30 minutes at a pH of less than 8.0, as for inactivation of enteric viruses. When chlorine is used as a disinfectant in a piped distribution system, it is desirable to maintain a free chlorine residual of 0.2-0.5 mg/liter throughout, to reduce the risk of microbial regrowth and the health risk of recontamination. In emergencies, e.g. in refugee camps, during outbreaks of potentially waterborne disease, or when fecal contamination of a water supply is detected, the concentration of free chlorine should be increased to greater than 0.5 mg/liter throughout the system.
High levels of turbidity can protect microorganisms from the effects of disinfection, stimulate the growth of bacteria, and give rise to a significant chlorine demand. Effective disinfection requires that turbidity is less than 5 NTU; ideally, median turbidity should be below 1 NTU.
Chlorine can be easily monitored and controlled as a drinking-water disinfectant, and regular, frequent monitoring is recommended wherever chlorination is practiced. Chlorine testing is discussed in section … The health-based guideline value for free chlorine in water supplied to the public is 5 mg/liter. However, concentrations that are detectable by consumers and may provoke rejection may be much lower than this (typically 0.6-1 mg/liter); an upper limit should therefore be established based on local experience.
The chemical and physical quality of water may affect its acceptability to consumers. Turbidity, color, taste, and odor, whether of natural or other origin, affect consumer perceptions and behavior. In extreme cases, consumers may avoid aesthetically unacceptable but otherwise safe supplies in favor of more pleasant but less wholesome sources of drinking-water.
It is therefore wise to be aware of consumer perceptions and to take into account both health-related guidelines and aesthetic criteria when assessing drinking-water supplies.
A range of turbidities, credit: USGS.gov
The combined perception of substances detected by the senses of taste and smell is often called “taste”. “Taste” problems in drinking-water supplies are often the largest single cause of consumer complaints. Changes in the normal taste of a public water supply may signal changes in the quality of the raw water source or deficiencies in the treatment process. Water should be free of tastes and odors that would be objectionable to the majority of consumers.
Since the main risks to human health associated with community water supplies are microbiological, it is possible use just a few types of water quality tests to judge the safety of supplies. This approach is sometimes referred to as “minimum monitoring” or “critical parameter testing”. It is much more effective to test for a narrow range of key parameters as frequently as possible (in conjunction with a sanitary inspection) than to conduct comprehensive but lengthy and largely irrelevant analyses less frequently.
The critical parameters of water quality are:
These should be supplemented, where appropriate, by:
A crucial advantage of these parameters is that they can be measured on site with relatively accessible testing equipment.
Analyses should also embrace the concept of acceptability: Volume 1 indicates that water supplied for drinking purposes should be inoffensive to consumers. Consumers may resort to a more palatable, but possibly unsafe, source if water is considered unacceptable; acceptability is therefore also considered a critical parameter. It may be assessed by observation (taste, color, odor, visible turbidity) and requires no laboratory determinations.
When bringing a new water supply source online for the first time, a wider range of analyses is advised. For example, seasonal variations in turbidity and the chemical aggressiveness of the water need to be identified so that treatment plants can be designed for worst-case conditions and so that risks to pumping equipment can be planned for.
The diseases most affected by the provision of adequate quantities of water for hygienic purposes are referred to as water-washed. They may be divided into the following three groups:
Surveillance
Quality Control
The results of a surveillance program can be used to improve water supplies through several mechanisms:
When the commonest problems and shortcomings 1n water-supply systems have been identified, national strategies can be formulated for improvements and remedial measures, these might include changes in training (of managers, administrators, engineers, or field staff), rolling programmes for rehabilitation or improvement, or changes in funding strategies to target specific needs.
Regional offices of water-supply agencies can decide which communities to work 1n and which remedial activities are priorities, public health Criteria should be considered when priorities are set.
Not all of the problems revealed by surveillance are technical 1n nature, and not all are solved by supply and construction agencies, surveillance also looks at problems involving private supplies, water collection and transport, and household treatment and storage. The solutions to many of these problems are likely to require educational and promotional activities coordinated by the health agency.
Many countries have laws and standards related to public water supply The information generated by surveillance can be used to assess compliance with standards by supply agencies Corrective act1on can be taken where necessary, but its feasibility must be considered, and enforcement of standards should be linked to strategies for progressive improvement.
Support should be provided by a designated authority to enable community members to be trained so that they are able to assume responsibility for the operation and maintenance of the1r water supplies.
In addition to the main objectives of a surveillance and water quality control program listed in the previous chapter, some complementary objectives include:
Program targets bridge the gap between program objectives and the plan of work. Some early surveillance program targets might include:
Where it represents a new activity for health or environmental-protection agencies, the implementation of surveillance activities should begin at the pilot level, progress to regional level, and then expand to national level.
Any approach in which extension to the national level takes place too rapidly has a number of potential disadvantages. This is especially true where implementation at pilot and regional levels depends on a national authority. In these circumstances, extension to a national surveillance or quality-control program may make sudden and severe demands on the human and financial resources of this body.
The limited availability of resources makes it advisable to start surveillance with a basic program that develops in a planned manner. Activities in the early stages must generate enough useful data to demonstrate the value of surveillance. Thereafter, the objective should be to progress to more advanced surveillance as resources and conditions permit.
Surveillance activities differ from place to place and should reflect local conditions. Factors influencing surveillance activities include:
It is important for a surveillance program to develop an inventory of the water supplies available to a community and what share of the population uses each supply. For example, a surveillance program of only piped water supplies is not advantageous if only a small portion of the community uses this source.
The inventory of supplies should draw on a combination of local community knowledge and field inspections. Where the initial inventory of supplies fails to account for the water consumption of a significant proportion of the population, it may be necessary to develop and implement a survey to determine the means by which water is supplied to the remainder of the population.
Another purpose served by the inventory is to estimate the workload on the surveillance agency and the cost of implementing a surveillance program.
The personnel responsible for data collection in the field need to be trained in a number of skills, including interviewing, working with communities, observation, sampling, and water-quality analysis. Adequate training in these areas will help ensure that surveillance findings are standardized throughout the programme and not subject to regional or local variations.
(Consider adding more and including training program diagram)
Staff responsible for field activities should ideally give local authorities advance notice of their visit, especially when a representative of the authority concerned must be present to provide access to parts of the supply system; staff should be accompanied by a representative of the supply agency whenever possible.
After on-site inspection and an analysis of the findings, problems or defects may be pointed out in the field to the local authorities or the representatives of the supply agency.
The findings of the preliminary survey may have profound implications for subsequent surveillance activities; for example, surveillance should take due account of the most widely used method of supplying water for domestic purposes or the one that presents the greatest public health risk to the population.
TBD
TBD
One objective of surveillance is to assess the quality of the water supplied by the supply agency and of that at the point of use, so that samples of both should be taken. Any significant difference between the two has important implications for remedial strategies.
Samples must be taken from locations that are representative of the water source, treatment plant, storage facilities, distribution network, points at which water is delivered to the consumer, and points of use. In selecting sampling points, each locality should be considered individually; however, the following general criteria are usually applicable:
(This could be a spot to place more updated data on sampling such as from the da Luz and Kumpel, 2020 study)
When sampling a piped distribution network, it is important to note that samples are not necessarily representative of system-wide conditions but they may be able to capture the worst-case conditions if correctly sited.
Fixed sampling sites, while prone to missing important contamination events, are useful in holding suppliers accountable for improvements in water quality.
need to figure out how to insert tables of suggested frequencies for piped and non-piped supplies
A Whirl-Pak Bag with Sodium Thiosulfate Tablet,credit: hach.com
The main goal of the bacteriological analysis of water is to identify and enumerate organisms that indicate the presence of fecal contamination. The isolation of specific pathogens in water should only be undertaken by reference laboratories for the purpose of investigating and controlling outbreaks. Routine isolation of these pathogens is not practical.
Link to more resources on E. coli / rational for why this is preferred FIB ?
Not sure if this is still used
In the membrane-filtration (MF) method, a minimum volume of 10 ml of the sample (or dilution of the sample) is introduced aseptically into a sterile or properly disinfected filtration assembly containing a sterile membrane filter (nominal pore size 0.2 or 0.45 \(\mu\)m). A vacuum is applied and the sample is drawn through the membrane filter. All indicator organisms are retained on or within the filter, which is then transferred to a suitable selective culture medium in a Petri dish. Following a period of resuscitation, during which the bacteria become acclimatized to the new conditions, the Petri dish is transferred to an incubator at the appropriate selective temperature where it is incubated for a suitable time to allow the replication of the indicator organisms. Visually identifiable colonies are formed and counted, and the results are expressed in numbers of “colony forming units” (CFU) per 100 ml of original sample.
This technique is inappropriate for waters with a level of turbidity that would cause the filter to become blocked before an adequate volume of water had passed through. When it is necessary to process low sample volumes (less than 10 ml), an adequate volume of sterile diluent must be used to disperse the sample before filtration and ensure that it passes evenly across the entire surface of the membrane filter. Where the quality of the water is totally unknown, it may be advisable to test two or more volumes in order to ensure that the number of colonies on the membrane is in the optimal range for counting (20-80 colonies per membrane). This is often accomplished with a 10-fold dilution series.
The MPN method is based on an indirect assessment of microbial density in the water sample by reference to statistical tables to determine the most probable number of microorganisms present in the original sample. This method is essential for highly turbid samples that can’t be analyzed by membrane filtration.
The MPN method depends on the separate analysis of a number of volumes of the same sample. Each volume is mixed with culture medium and incubated. The concentration of microorganisms in the original sample can then be estimated from the pattern of positive results (the number of volumes showing growth in each series) by means of statistical tables that give the “most probable number” per 100 ml of the original sample.
In the past, this method was very time consuming as it involved the measurement of several different sample volumes into separate glass tubes for each sample.
Now, with the use of the IDEXX Quantitray and Colilert-18 medium, the procedure is much simpler, although the costs are higher than for the membrane filtration method.
Presence-absence tests are not recommended for use in the analysis of surface waters, untreated small-community supplies, or larger water supplies that may experience occasional operational and maintenance difficulties.
Look into updating pros and cons table to accommodate use of IDEXX method
Unless there is a legal requirement to test, in situations where fecal contamination very likely (downstream of a sewage discharge) or unlikely (in a distribution system with free chlorine residual greater than 0.5 mg/ liter), microbiological analysis may be omitted to reduce costs.