Bottled Water

There has been a gradual increase in demand for bottled water in the United States over the past 20 years, which has been exacerbated by public health scares relating mainly to waterborne outbreaks of human cryptosporidiosis caused by Cryptosporidium parvum. Furthermore, a recent study has demonstrated a high consumption (40%) of bottled water by human immunodeficiency virus-positive patients. To date, there have been relatively few reports employing the use of molecular identification methods, particularly the use of rRNA identification techniques, to identify contaminating bacterial and fungal agents in bottled water. They report an occurrence of spoilage in fruit-flavored bottled drinking water, which was isolated during production and prior to distribution.

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