Bacteriologic studies of food and water consumed by children in Myanmar : 2. Lack of association between diarrhoea and contamination of food and water

The association between contamination of morning samples of food and water of 208 children aged 6-29 months and the incidence of diarrhoea was investigated for 3 months in Yangon, Myanmar. Contamination of the samples was determined by isolation of faecal coliforms (FC) by standard methods. The children were divided into three groups, high, medium and low, according to the proportion of food and water samples found to be contaminated. The incidence of diarrhoea was recorded by weekly recall. Of the 779 food samples, 504 (65%), and of the 860 drinking water samples, 187 (22%) were positive for FC. The association between food and water contamination and the incidence of diarrhoea was assessed by comparing the cumulative incidences in the high and medium groups with that in the low group which served as reference. Diarrhoea risk ratios (RR) for children in the medium and high contamination groups (food, RR=1.04 in medium and 0.78 in high vs 1 in low; water, RR=0.73 and 0.73 vs 1) were not significantly different from those who were in the low-contamination group even after controlling for the confounding variables.