Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Dr Kishor Acharya, Dr Shaaban Mgana, Professor David WernerORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© 2022 The Author(s). Pit latrines provide essential onsite sanitation services to over a billion people, but there are concerns about their role in infectious disease transmission, and impacts on groundwater resources. We conducted fieldwork in an informal settlement in Dar es Salaam, where cholera is endemic. We combined plate counting with portable MinION sequencing and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) methods for characterization of bacteria in pit latrine sludge, leachate, shallow and deep groundwater resources. Pit latrine sludge was characterized by log10 marker gene concentrations per 100 mL of 11.2 ± 0.2, 9.9 ± 0.9, 6.0 ± 0.3, and 4.4 ± 0.8, for total bacteria (16S rRNA), E. coli (rodA), human-host-associated Bacteroides (HF183), and Vibrio cholerae (ompW), respectively. The ompW gene observations suggested 5 % asymptomatic Vibrio cholerae carriers amongst pit latrine users. Pit leachate percolation through one-meter-thick sand beds attenuated bacterial hazard indicators by 1 to 4 log10 units. But first-order removal rates derived from these data substantially overestimated the longer-range hazard attenuation in the sand aquifers. Cooccurrence of human sewage marker gene HF183 in all shallow groundwater samples testing positive for ompW genes demonstrated the human origin of Vibrio cholerae hazards in the subsurface. All borehole water samples tested negative for ompW and HF183 genes, but 16S rRNA gene sequencing data suggested ingress of faecal pollution into boreholes at the peak of the “long rainy season”. Quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) predicted a gastrointestinal disease burden of 0.05 DALY per person per year for the community, well above WHO targets of 10-4-10-6 DALY for disease related to drinking water.
Author(s): Halla FF, Massawa SM, Joseph EK, Acharya K, Sabai SM, Mgana SM, Werner D
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Environment International
Year: 2022
Volume: 167
Print publication date: 01/09/2022
Online publication date: 25/07/2022
Acceptance date: 21/07/2022
Date deposited: 10/08/2022
ISSN (print): 0160-4120
ISSN (electronic): 1873-6750
Publisher: Elsevier Ltd
URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2022.107429
DOI: 10.1016/j.envint.2022.107429
Altmetrics provided by Altmetric
