Abstract ▼ AI-Helper

Foot-and-mouth disease broke out on nationwide scale in 2010. Many burial sites of animal carcass were built and contamination of groundwater by leachate from some emergency burial site was concerned. To inspect pathogenic bacterial and virus contamination of groundwater around animal carcass burial...

Foot-and-mouth disease broke out on nationwide scale in 2010. Many burial sites of animal carcass were built and contamination of groundwater by leachate from some emergency burial site was concerned. To inspect pathogenic bacterial and virus contamination of groundwater around animal carcass burial sites, a surveillance study was performed in the dry season (February to April) and wet season (July to November). Total two hundreds and seventy sites were included in this survey.
General bacteria, total coliform, fecal coliform, E. coli, and enteroviruses were detected over permission limit for drinking water in 11.1%, 30%, 12.2%, 6.3% and 3.3%, respectively, while E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, Shigella, C. perfringens, and noroviruses were undetectable in groundwater around animal burial sites. The detection frequency was generally higher in the second survey performed during rainy season. The detection frequency was highest in Gyeonsangnam-do and getting lower in the order of Gyeonsangbuk-do, Gangwon-do, Jeollanam-do, Chungcheongbuk-do, Gyeonggi-do, and Chungcheongnam-do. The detection frequency of coliform bacteria seemed to be higher in groundwater with turbidity over 0.500 NTU but no correlation was observed with respective of pH range. The detection frequencies of pathogenic microorganisms in drinking water were slightly lower compared to those in the non-drinking water. The detection frequencies of microorganisms were slightly higher in groundwater near the burial sites of pigs compared to those of other animals. The detection frequencies of microorganisms appeared to be getting higher as the sampling sites were closer to the burial sites. The present study suggest that groundwater can be contaminated with leachate from burial sites of animal carcass however more systemic surveys employing more samples including negative controls collected from different sites and different periods are required to properly assess the risk of groundwater contamination from the burial sites of animal carcass.

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