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. 2016 Jun 28;13(7):641.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph13070641.

Monitoring of Waterborne Parasites in Two Drinking Water Treatment Plants: A Study in Sarawak, Malaysia

Reena Leeba Richard  1 , Init Ithoi  2 , Mohamad Azlan Abd Majid  3 , Wan Yusoff Wan Sulaiman  4 , Tian Chye Tan  5 , Veeranoot Nissapatorn  6 , Yvonne Ai Lian Lim  7
Affiliations

Monitoring of Waterborne Parasites in Two Drinking Water Treatment Plants: A Study in Sarawak, Malaysia

Reena Leeba Richard et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

The occurrence of waterborne parasites coupled with water parameters at various processing sites of two drinking water treatment plants (A and B) and seven distribution system (DS) sites in Sarawak, Malaysia were studied. Ten liters of water underwent immunomagnetic separation (IMS) technique to detect the presence of Giardia and Cryptosporidium (oo)cysts. The remaining supernatant was used to detect other parasites whilst 50 mL of water sample was each used in the detection of free-living amoebae and fecal coliforms. Sampled water was positive for Giardia (32.9%; 28/85), Cryptosporidium (18.8%; 16/85) followed by Spirometra ova-like (25.9%; 22/85), Blastocystis-like (25.9%; 22/85), nematode larvae-like (8.2%; 7/85) and Taenia ova-like (1.2%; 1/85). Meanwhile, 90.2% (55/61) samples were positive for Acanthamoeba and Naegleria via cultivation and of these, 11 isolates were confirmed as Acanthamoeba genotype T3 (5/7) and T4 (2/7) followed by Naegleria sp. (4/11), Naegleria italica (2/11), Naegleria australiensis (1/11), Naegleria angularis (1/11) and Vahlkampfia sp. (3/11). Cryptosporidium, Acanthamoeba and Naegleria were also detected in one of the seven tested DS sites. Only Giardia and Cryptosporidium showed significant correlations with fluoride and fecal coliforms. These results describe the occurrence of waterborne parasites that will assist key stakeholders in mitigating contamination at the specific sites.

Keywords: Malaysia; drinking water treatment plants; processing sites; water parameters; waterborne parasites.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic diagram of Plant A.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Schematic diagram of Plant B.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Neighbor-joining tree depicting the relationships between isolates and reference strains representing the genotypes of Acanthamoeba. The numbers on branch points depict the values of 1000 bootstrap replicates. GenBank accession numbers for reference sequences are indicated at the end of the species designations.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Maximum-likelihood tree depicting the relationships between isolated and reference strains of Naegleria, Vahlkampfia and Allovahlkampfia. The numbers on branch points depict the values of 1000 bootstrap replicates. GenBank accession numbers for reference sequences are indicated at the end of the species designations.
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