Assessment of Microbiological Quality of Outdoor Swimming Pools in Ilorin, Kwara State

Swimming pools have been found to be a reservoir of different types of microorganisms and through this, many contagious infections can be contacted from these pools. Aim: the aim of this study is to determine the microbial quality of selected swimming pools and also the antimicrobial resistant pattern of the isolated microorganisms. Water samples were collected from six different outdoor swimming pools and microbiological analyses using different culturing media were carried out on these samples. Standard antibiotics discs were also used to determine the antibiotic resistant pattern of the isolated microorganisms. Results obtained from this study showed that the microbial counts for the swimming pools samples ranged from 06 × 10 3 - 98 × 10 3 cfu/mL while all the samples examined were feacally contaminated. The isolated microorganisms include; P. cepacia, P. aeruginosa, E. coli, C. fruendii, B. subtilis, S. aureus, S. epidermidis, Pr. vulgaris, Shigella sp., Penicillium notatum, A. niger, Rhizopus sp. and A. flavus. The growth of the isolated organisms in different concentrations of calcium hypochlorite showed that most of the isolated organisms can survive up to 12ppm concentration but P. cepacia and B. subtilis did not show any growth even at 1ppm. All the isolated bacteria showed multi-drug antibiotics resistant pattern except P. cepacia which was only resistant to Nitrofurantoin. All the swimming pools examined in this study were contaminated and infections contracted from these pools might be difficult to treat due to the multi-drug antibiotics resistant pattern showed by these microorganisms.