Occurrence of enteric bacteria in seawater and mussels along the southwest coast of India

Distribution of Escherichia coli , faecal streptococci, Salmonella and Vibrio cholerae at Neenkadara, Vizhinjam and Koottappalli (Cape Comorin, India) during January 1986-January 1987 indicated that dispersion and disappearance of enteric bacteria in these environments are very conspicuous. However, their residence time in the marine environments from where these samples were collected during the monsoon season was very high. This is evidenced by their presence in the brown mussel Perna indica collected from the mussel beds of these locations. Salmonella spp. and V. cholerae 01 were totally absent during the study period, but V. cholerae non 01 was observed in some of the mussel samples collected.