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Letters
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal ‐ american water works association
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.466
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1551-8833
pISSN - 0003-150X
DOI - 10.1002/j.1551-8833.1999.tb08590.x
Subject(s) - cryptosporidium , outbreak , cites , environmental health , geography , demography , biology , virology , medicine , ecology , sociology , feces
This letter cites an article from the September 1998 Journal, which concludes that the results of analysis of data from 12 reported waterborne outbreaks of cryptosporidiosis in the United Kingdom and the US did not show a clear association between the Cryptosporidium oocyst concentrations measured in the water and the risk of illness. The letter discusses how this appears to challenge the foundations for developing risk assessment models for Cryptosporidium in drinking water. It goes on to describe how the risk of infection from Cryptosporidium is directly related to the arithmetic mean oocyst concentration in the water, which in turn is related to the total number of oocysts entering the supply. Therefore any factor that underestimates the mean concentration will also underestimate the predicted risk and would contribute to the lack of a clear association between measured oocyst concentrations and the observed outbreak of illness.