Features Contamination Water Issues
New research explores acute gastrointestinal illness in private well water in Canada

Cambridge, UK – New Canadian research supports the use of quantitative microbial risk assessment as an effective source-attribution tool and establishes a mechanism to assess the potential burden of acute gastrointestinal illness attributed to small systems and private well water in Canada.

The paper, published in the journal Epidemiology and Infection, is a joint effort of the Centre for Food-borne, Environmental and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases in Guelph, Ont.; the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Waterloo; and the Water and Health Canada’s Air Quality Bureau, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch.

The study, entitled Estimating the burden of acute gastrointestinal illness due to Giardia, Cryptosporidium, Campylobacter, E. coli O157 and norovirus associated with private wells and small water systems in Canada, explores evidence that individuals served by private systems and small community systems may be more at risk of waterborne illness than those served by municipal drinking water systems in Canada.

Read more here.