Zoonoses e água de consumo humano: percepção e conduta de produtores leiteiros na microrregião

Abstract

The use of groundwater is an important way of capturing water, however it is necessary that these alternatives meet the potability parameters in order to guarantee access to water free of microbiological contaminants. The microbiological parameters established by Brazilian legislation are the absence of total coliforms and Escherichia coli in 100mL of water sample, and for mesophilic heterotrophic microorganisms, the count limit of 500 CFU/mL is established. We sought to study the perception of 51 dairy farmers about the water used on the property, as well as carrying out microbiological analyzes of well water. Also, knowledge related to sanitation on the property, well protection factors, zoonoses, vectors, products of animal origin, as well as identifying risk factors for zoonoses on the properties were investigated. For this, semi-structured interviews were applied in 51 dairy farms in the micro region of Pelotas, RS, and microbiological analyzes were carried out in the wells of the producers. The following results were obtained, all samples from the wells had the presence of E. coli and total coliforms, which is in disagreement with Brazilian legislation, for heterotrophic microorganisms, most of the wells did not exceed the allowed count. For the analyzes carried out with the microbiological results, associated with well protection factors and the individuals' perception of the water, it was found that the greater the number of protection factors, the lower the number of bacterial counts, and when the variable “perception”, the clusters are formed in high bacterial count associated with perception of adequate water and with few protection factors. In this study, knowledge of the term zoonosis was low, and risk factors for leptospirosis, hydatid disease and fascioliasis were identified from the interviews. Analyzes were performed using Epidata 3.1, SPSS 20.0., Qgis version 3.22.13 software. This study found the poor quality of groundwater used in dairy farms in the Pelotas micro-region, RS, which points to the need for public policy attention in these locations. Still, it presents the importance of health education in order to mitigate the processes of diseases and injuries arising from the knowledge of waterborne diseases and zoonoses in these populations.