Antibiotic Susceptibility of Bacterial Isolates in Sachet Water

The study aims to determine the bacteriological quality and antibiotic resistivity pattern of bacterial isolates in sachet water sold on the street of Cape Coast Metropolis, one of the areas with perennial water shortage forcing inhabitants to depend on sachet water as a source of drinking water. Fifteen (15) different sachet water brands were collected from different vendors. A volume of each sample was added to an equal volume of bacteriological peptone water, incubated for 24hrs at 370C and sub-cultured onto Plate count agar (PCA) for bacteria colony count after isolated colonies were sub-cultured Blood and MacConkey agar. Isolated bacteria were indentified using appropriate biochemical tests. All the sachet water brands had viable counts on the PCA. Identification tests discovered that all the samples were contaminated with different bacterial isolates which include Bacillus cereus, Coagulase negative staphylococcus, Citrobacter spp., Escherichia coli, Enterococcus faecalis, Listeria monocytogenes, Proteus spp., Providencia spp., Pseudomonas aeruginosa. However there was no growth in the bottled water.The results indicate poor bacteriological quality of sachet water.