Bacteriological, parasitological and chemical pollution of Nile River water at some Greater Cairo sites

ABSTRACT

The River Nile, Egypt’s main source of water, is polluted by agricultural, industrial and municipal wastewater discharges. The paper reports a study of biological pollution of river water through bacterial and parasitological analysis, besides chemical pollution by cadmium and lead. The researchers collected water samples seasonally from 12 sites in Greater Cairo along a year (from July 2019 to June 2020). Some sites were contaminated with total coliforms, Acanthamoeba sp., and Cryptosporidium oocysts, whereas Naegleria sp. was recorded at all sites. Although the recorded Cd concentrations were below the permissible levels in all sites, the concentration of Pb exceeded the permissible limit in some sites. In conclusion, Nile River water in Greater Cairo region is contaminated, especially with total coliforms and free living amoebae. This health threat needs to be controlled and diminished by law.

KEYWORDS:

• Total coliform bacteria
• Naegleria
• Cryptosporidium
• Acanthamoeba
• Cd
• Pb

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Theodor Bilharz Research Institute (Grant Number: 104C)

Authors’ contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Hanaa Mahmoud M. El-Khayat, Marwa Tamim A. Abdel-Wareth, Eman S. El-Wakil, Wafaa Abdel-Aziz and Asmaa Abdel-Motleb. The first draft of the manuscript was written by MarwaTamim A. Abdel-Wareth and Eman S. El-Wakil, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Availability of data and material

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Theodor Bilharz Research Institute (Grant Number: 104 C).