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Holy water fonts are reservoirs of pathogenic bacteria
V Jurado1, A Ortiz-Martinez, M Gonzalez-delValle
1Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiologia de Sevilla, CSIC, Apartado 1052, 41080 Sevilla, Spain.
Environmental Microbiology
|October 9, 2002
Abstract:
The holy water fonts from the churches of Seville, Spain have a strong bacterial contamination. Coliforms, Enterobacteriaceae and other pathogenic bacteria are widely represented in the fonts investigated. Thirty out of the 37 different species isolated from holy waters are known human pathogens. The high bacterial contamination is related to human skin transmission and, probably, to misuse of the water.