In most rural and urban settlements, particularly in Nigeria, wells, spring, streams or rivers and lakes serves as major sources of water supply for drinking and other domestic purposes. Unfortunately, many of the available water sources are not potable without some form of treatment which is seldom available in most settings. The use of untreated surface water sources for drinking and for domestic purposes remains a major threat to public health as these could serve as reservoirs the for transfer of antibiotic resistant pathogens. The incidence of resistant bacteria isolated from surface and underground water in six rural settlements in Ekiti State Nigeria was thus investigated. Gram-negative bacteria were isolated from wells, streams and boreholes in six rural settlements in Ekiti State Nigeria between January and April, 2006 and the prevalence of organisms exhibiting multiple antibiotic resistance to tetracycline, amoxicillin, cotrimoxazole, nitofurantoin, gentamicin, nalidixic acid and ofloxacin was observed. Gram-negative bacterial isolates comprised Escherichia coli (22.7%), Enterobacter aerogenes (2.5%), Salmonella spp. (13.3%), Shigella spp. (19.3%), Proteus spp. (18.5%), Klebsiella spp. (19.3%) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (4.2%). Over 10% of the bacteria were resistant to four or more antibiotic. Antibiotic resistance was highest in members of the genera Enterobacter, Pseudomonas, and Proteus.
