Bacteriological Evaluation of Bottled and Jar Water Available in Sylhet City

Water related diseases are of great concern in developing countries like Bangladesh. Every year, many people die due to consumption of unsafe drinking water. In order to protect public health it is compulsory that the accessible drinking water should be maximum quality. In this descriptive observational study 150 samples of bottled water and 150 jar water samples were collected from different shops and restaurants. Each sample were filtered through a membrane filter and then placed on MacConkey agar media for total and fecal coliform count and 0.1 ml of water spread on nutrient agar media for heterotrophic plate count (HPC). Among 150 bottled water samples 11 (7.33%) were culture positive and 92 (61.33%) were culture positive in 150 jar water samples. Out of 150 jar water samples 38 (25.33%) were total coliform and among them 19 (12.67%) were fecal coliform. Among 300 water samples 55 (53.40%) samples showed HPC greater than 500 CFU/ml. A total of 9 bacterial isolates: Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter spp. CONS, Aeromonas spp., Enterobacter spp., Klebsiella spp. and Citrobacter were found.