Water Quality Quiz Answers

  1. What percentage of the world’s population lives without any form of sanitation and practices open defecation?
    Answer: 15%
  2. What is Naegleria fowleri, an organism that causes a rare but devastating brain infection?
    Answer: An amoeba
  3. What bacterium has been isolated from cooling towers, is spread through water droplets in the air, and causes Pontiac Disease?
    Answer: Legionella pneumophila
  4. What parasite forms oocysts that are excreted in feces?
    Answer: Cryptosporidium parvum
  5. What comma-shaped bacterium caused over 9,000 deaths following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti?
    Answer: Vibrio cholera
  6. What Asian parasite lives in fresh water snails during part of its life cycle and is second only to malaria as the most devastating parasitic disease?
    Answer: Schistosoma mansoni
  7. What non-enveloped, single stranded RNA virus can be transmitted in water and is a major cause of acute gastroenteritis?
    Answer: Norovirus
  8. What protozoan flagellate produces cysts that are excreted in feces and causes a disease nicknamed Beaver Fever because beavers may be carriers?
    Answer: Giardia lamblia
  9. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), at least how many people die of Shigellosis per year?
    Answer: 1,000,000
  10. What Gram-negative bacillus can grow at 42°C, is found in soil and muddy water in tropical regions, and causes Melioidosis.
    Answer: Burkholderia pseudomallei
  11. What microaerophilic, curved, spiral-shaped gram negative rod can be spread by contaminated water?
    Answer: Campylobacter jejuni
  12. WHO recommends the use of the Vi-PS and Ty21a vaccines to control what endemic disease?
    Answer: Typhoid Fever