Adoption of a microbial health-based target for australian drinking water regulation

Abstract

The health-based targets of 1 in 10,000 for infection and 10-6 disability adjusted life years (DALYs) per person per year are increasingly being considered, or have already been adopted, to define microbial safety targets for water. The aim of this paper is to convey information about how these two targets compare by converting each of the target values to a common metric. The metric chosen for viral (rotavirus and norovirus) and protozoan (Cryptosporidium) reference pathogens is the estimated maximum number of annual drinking water-associated cases of acute diarrhoeal disease tolerated. For the reference bacterial pathogen Campylobacter, sequelae to acute diarrhoeal illness have also been c..