HYGIENIC-SANITARY EVALUATION OF THE DRINKING WATER PIPELINES IN THE CITY OF VLORA AND THE IMPACT ON COMMUNITY HEALTH

In the city of Vlora the production capacity of drinking water, is higher than the amount of water which reach’s the population. The drink-water pipeline is very old and amortized which led to drink-water losses and contamination of the drink-water causing gastro-intestinal disorders to the population. The methodology applied focused on observation and examination of the drink-water samples. Drink-water samples were taken in 22 different checkpoints in the period January-December 2010.The drink-water capacity of Vlora city is much higher than the capacity supplied to the population. The data collected from the drink-water supply Department shows that from 1 million m3 drink-water only 560 thousand m3 goes to the population which means that over 40% of the drink-water supplies leaks away because of the outdated pipelines. From the 6908 drink-water samples taken in different location of the city, 171 of them or 2.5% results with microbiological contamination. During 2010, 6609 cases with gastro-intestinal disease caused by contaminated drink-water were registered in the public hospital.The outdated drink-water pipelines and the massive losses, makes that the drink-water supply capacity is much under the population demand on the other hand the leaks in different parts of the pipeline cause contamination of the drink-water on those area by increasing so the population vulnerability to disease.