Suresh Kishanrao*

Public Health Consultant Bengaluru and Professor of Practice, School of Environment Sciences, Public Health, and Sanitation Management, Karnataka State Rural Development and Panchayat Raj University (KSRDPRU), GADAG, Karnataka, India

*Corresponding Author: Suresh Kishanrao, Public Health Consultant Bengaluru and Professor of Practice, School of Environment Sciences, Public Health, and Sanitation Management, Karnataka State Rural Development and Panchayat Raj University (KSRDPRU), GADAG, Karnataka, India.

Received: July 11, 2022; Published: August 10, 2022

Abstract

Household drinking water purification systems used in f the urban elite families of late adopt reverse osmosis process for improving the quality of water for consumption. They do not give enough protection from fungi in drinking water as the current understanding of the risk on health of general low and therefore current maintenance process, monitoring and treatment may look sufficient.

Most common human fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans depends upon the light for its growth and development. Light inhibits mating and haploid fruiting (morphological switch from a budding yeast form to develop hyphae and viable basidiospores resembling those producing by mating) of the fungi especially seen in Cryptococcus neoformans, that infect central nervous system. The process of haploid fruiting is not yet fully clear.

I report here a case of fungal growths in the RO filter exposed to sunlight through a window and falling directly on the filter. The source of our apartment complex of 143 apartments being the same, this solitary episode raised a question and is yet to be answered. The manufacturers customer support team kept on changing the filters and a change of the position of the equipment to avoid direct sunlight exposure on the unit resolved the issue. Though no untoward health effect of the level of contamination as seen by the colour of the water was dreadful, nothing happened. Unfortunately, the manufacturer had no clue, as to what may cause fungal growth, though they kept promising to replace the filters.

BWSSB monitors the Microbiological safety of drinking water by bacterial indices due to faecal contamination, though some viral agents, also cause gastro-intestinal illness. Non-endemic microbial contaminants like Fungi that cause health issues like allergies, opportunistic infections and intoxication have become known recently, but the mode of such infections is yet to be established by the scientific community.

Greater knowledge about the association between fungi and bacteria and if commonly measured bacterial counts of water quality are sufficient is desired.

Materials and Methods: This case report is based on the observation of an RO system water filter in our apartment, in two distinct positions over last 3 years. The manufacturers technical support teams’ maintenance work limited to cleaning and replacing the filters and a written response from the manufacturer, saying that they have not come across such case earlier and will explore

Keywords: Reverse Osmosis; Carbon Filters; Trapping Organic Chemicals and Chlorine Ultraviolet Lamps for Sterilizing from Microbes; Bacterial Growth; Fungi

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Citation: Suresh Kishanrao. “Beware! Fungus Growth in Reverse Osmosis Filters: On Exposure to Direct Sunlight!!". Acta Scientific Clinical Case Reports 3.9 (2022): 23-28.

Copyright: © 2022 Suresh Kishanrao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.