Drinking Water Microbiology

Abstract

One of the Millennium Development Goals is to halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of the population that does not have sustainable access to safe drinking water, which would increase the coverage from 76% to 88% (1). This goal was met in 2010, with 116 countries meeting the target (2). Since 1990, more than two billion people have gained access to improved drinking water sources, with 89% of the population covered. There were only three countries (Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, and Papua New Guinea) where less than half the population had access to an improved drinking water source, and 35 countries (26 of which are in sub-Saharan Africa) in which only 50-75% of the population has access to an improved source of drinking water. Although this represents a substantial improvement, more than 700 million people still lack access to improved sources of drinking water, almost half of which are in sub-Saharan Africa (2). It is predicted that there will still be more than half a billion people without access to an improved drinking water supply by 2015.