Abstract

Swimming pools are place where people attend for recreational activities, rehabilitative treatment or sport. This makes the swimming pools to be a reservoir of different types of microorganisms, hence the risk of transmission of infections among bathers. The aim of this study is to investigate the prevalence of microbial population in the two public swimming pools. Two different swimming pools in Sokoto metropolis, were investigated for their microbial presence. Water samples were collected from three different locations in each of the pool (surface, bottom and edge of the pool). Samples were serially diluted and cultured. The spread plate technique was adopted using standard plate count agar for the determination of total heterotrophic bacterial and fungal counts. Bacterial and fungal isolates were identified using standard methods. Microorganisms isolated includes Bacillus anthracis, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Bacillus subtilis, Vibrio cholera, Rhizopus sp, Fusarium sp, Trichophyton mentagrophytes, Mucorsp, Candida albicans, Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus flavus.  The heterotrophic bacterial count ranged from 3.7×10⁶ CFU/ml in sample H₂ to 1.60×10⁷ CFU/ml in sample H₃. Test for coliform yielded no growth. Fungal counts ranged from 1.0×10³ CFU/ml in sample G₁ and G₂ to 1.8×10⁴ CFU/ml in sample H₃. There was no significant differences between the means of the microbial counts of the two swimming pools (p>0.05). In conclusion, the absent of Coliform and fecal coliform bacteria and low colony counts below 200cfu/ml showed that the two swimming pools has met the WHO standard that has been accepted by Nigeria. This study is limited to few samples because only two active swimming pools were available during this research.