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ABSTRACT
Waterborne organisms in marine water generally originate from untreated wastewater discharged into the sea. The presence of numerous leisure beaches in Mahmoudabad city, Iran, annually attracts thousands of tourists from all over the country to participate in recreational swimming activities. This study probabilistically characterized the health risks associated with recreational swimming engendered by waterborne pathogens, such as intestinal enterococci and Escherichia coli (E. coli) at 15 sampling points along the beaches of the study using quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA). The mean annual infection risk of E. coli in children and adults was 0.424 and 0.229, respectively. The respective risk in terms of enterococci was 0.999 and 0.997, which were higher than the level recommended by the WHO and EPA. The results show that the risk of infection for children was higher than adults. Related authorities have to consider measures to improve environmental quality to protect tourists’ and residents’ well-being.
Abbreviations
| No | = | Full name Abbreviation Unit |
| 1 | = | World Health Organization WHO Dimensionless |
| 2 | = | Environmental Protection Agency EPA Dimensionless |
| 3 | = | Monte Carlo Simulation MCS Dimensionless |
| 4 | = | Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment QMRADimensionless |
| 5 | = | Bathing Water Directive BWD Dimensionless |
| 6 | = | Most Probable Number MPN Dimensionless |
| 7 | = | Colony-Forming Units CFUDimensionless |
| 8 | = | Pathogen Concentration CpathMPN 100 mL-1 |
| 9 | = | Water Ingestion Volumes VingmL |
| 10 | = | The Probability of Daily Infection Risk PinfIllnesses/User/Day |
| 11 | = | The Ingested Dose For Each Pathogen DpathMPN 100 mL-1 |
| 12 | = | The Probability of Annual Infection Risk Pn Illnesses/User/Year |
| 13 | = | Daily Infection DI Day |
| 14 | = | Annual Infection AI Year |
| 15 | = | The Parametric SlopeαDimensionless |
| 16 | = | The Average Dose to Cause an InfectionN50MPN 100 mL-1 |
Acknowledgment
This study is related to the project NO IR.SBMU.RETECH.REC.1400/4618 from Student Research Committee, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. The authors appreciate the “Student Research Committee” and “Research and Technology Chancellor” in Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences for their financial support.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).