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Faecal Coliforms / Coliform Organisms/
E.Coli
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The
COLIFORM group of bacteria includes
not only organisms from the intestinal
tract of warm blooded animals (faecal
coli, mainly E.COLI - Escherichia Coli)
but also organisms from the soil or
vegetation (mainly Aerobactercleroge).
Because human faeces are a principal
source of pathogenic organisms (an organism
causing disease), evidence of coliforms
and especially E.Coli, are an indication
that pathogenic organisms could be present.
However, to put all this in perspective,
a single person will excrete approximately
10,000,000,000,000 coliform organisms
every day.
Various pathogenic organisms are calculated
to be found in various numbers of coliform
levels. Allowing for safety factors,
if the calculation for pathogenic organisms
is 10 per 1,000,000 coliforms, the likelihood
of pathogenic organisms in a sample
containing 100 coliforms is 1000:1.
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