Waterborne disease causing organisms are for the most part in three general categories of microorganism. i.e. bacteria, protozoa and viruses. They made the water unsafe for human consumption.
In most cases, they originate for human and/or animal fecal wastes.
Waterborne viral agents and the diseases they cause include poliomyelitis virus (polio) and hepatitis A virus (hepatitis).
Waterborne bacteria and the diseases they cause include Escherichia coli (gastroenteritis), Legionella spp. (legionellosis), Salmonella typhi (typhoid fever), Shigella spp. (shigellosis or bacillary dysentery) and Vibrio cholerae (cholera).
A waterborne disease outbreak is a water exposure in which at least two persons have been epidemiologically linked to recreational or drinking water by location, time, and illness.
During late nineteenth and early twentieth century there were two waterborne diseases that posed the greatest threat to the American population: typhoid fever and diarrhea.
Typhoid fever is caused by Salmonella typhi, a bacterium that can survive only in human hosts and lives in the intestinal tract. People typically contracted the disease by drinking contaminated water.
More broadly, water caused diseases also include water-washed diseases caused by poor personal hygiene and skin or eye contact with contaminated water, water based diseases caused by parasites found in intermediate organisms living in water and water related diseases caused by insect vectors which breed in water.
Waterborne disease microorganisms
