Water Quality and Prevalence of Waterborne Diseases in a University Community in Imo State, Nigeria.
This study evaluated water quality and prevalence of waterborne diseases ina university community in Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria. To attain this, health record was obtained from the university clinic and Imo State Specialist hospital.
To determine the water quality, thirteen physicochemical parameters were tested for the eleven water samples with reference to WHO permissible limit for drinking water. Eight borehole water samples were collected strategically from various points within the university community and its environs. Besides, three water samples were collected upstream, midstream and downstream of the surface water.Standard analytical procedures for testing the quality of water samples were employed for the study. Descriptive statistics of frequency, percentage mean and standard deviation were used to analyze the research questions while inferential statistics of t-test was used to test the hypothesis.The result showed the prevalence rate of 16.7% and cases of waterborne diseases was higher across all the years higher among females than their male counterparts.The findings from the result also showed poor water quality as only five out of the thirteen tested physicochemical parameters were within permissible limit with WHO standards for drinking water, which include TDS, sulphate, nitrate, fluoride and dissolved oxygen. The result of the hypothesis test showed that there is no significant difference between the physicochemical parameter values of surface and borehole water sources except for the BOD at p:0.0241<0.05.It was therefore recommended that borehole and surface water from the university should be properly treated before consumption. Also government and other stakeholders should provide alternative treated borehole or pipe-borne water for the university community.
Key word: Waterborne diseases, water quality, water sources, prevalence, physiochemical parameters,
