You are here:
THE PERSISTENCE OF MYCOBACTERIUM AVIUM IN A DRINKING WATER DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM AFTER THE ADDITION OF FILTRATION TREATMENT
Citation:
HILBORN, E, T. C. COVERT, M. YAKRUS, S. HARRIS, S. DONNELY, E. W. RICE, S. TONEY, S. BAILEY, AND G. STELMA. THE PERSISTENCE OF MYCOBACTERIUM AVIUM IN A DRINKING WATER DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM AFTER THE ADDITION OF FILTRATION TREATMENT. Presented at International Meeting on Microbial Epidemiological Markers, Victoria, BC, CANADA, May 11 - 14, 2005.
Description:
There is evidence that drinking water may be a source of pathogenic nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) infections in humans. One method by which NTM are believed to enter drinking water distribution systems is by their intracellular location within protozoa. Our goal was to determine if NTM prevalence would decrease after the addition of filtration treatment to an unfiltered surface water source. We sampled water from two drinking water treatment plants over a 29-month period. The first plant added filtration to the treatment process after six months of sampling, the second remained unfiltered. At each plant, we sampled treatment plant influent and effluent, distributed water, and cold water taps (point-of-use (POU) sites) in public or commercial buildings located on the distribution systems. Water samples collected at POU sites yielded the majority of NTM with a prevalence of greater than 50% with no apparent reduction in the detection of NTM despite the addition of filtration. Specific clones of Mycobacterium avium, as determined by pulsed field gel electrophoresis, were found to persist at POU sites for up to 27 months despite the addition of filtration treatment. This finding is consistent with others who have reported detecting M. avium in distribution system biofilms. Evidence of this ability of clonal strains of M. avium to persist within drinking water distribution systems is useful, and may be applied during the investigation of environmental sources of human M. avium infection using molecular methods. This is an abstract of a proposed presentation and does not necessarily reflect EPA policy