Various taxo- and ecogroups of bacteria as index organisms for the enteric contamination of bottled waters: their significance and enumeration.

Bottled "still" waters may present bacterial and viral risks, particularly for compromised consumers and when stored for some length of time in opened containers. Therefore, bottling has to be supervised carefully and any sanitary deficiencies discovered, corrected immediately. When plants are thus controlled by a preventive system, bacteriological examination of samples will be warranted, whereas this is senseless, for mathematical reasons, in non-supervised bottling plants. A direct search for enteric pathogens is discouraged. Instead, detection of the entire Enterobacteriaceae group, P. aeruginosa and Lancefield group D streptococci, is advocated. Deficiencies of customarily used methods of detection of the coli-aerogenes group of bacteria are outlined. The need for resuscitation of cells of bacterial groups used as index organisms, debilitated by storage in bottled waters, before their inoculation into currently employed selective media is demonstrated.