Framework for drinking water safety in Saint Lucia: health based targets

This paper is part of a larger project in the Caribbean looking at the drinking-water supply provision for a community in Saint Lucia using the Water Safety Plan approach. Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment (QMRA) was used to assess waterborne pathogen exposure in the community of Micoud and the potential for reduction of exposure by implementation of the Water Safety Plan approach. The QMRA for Micoud illustrates that the Water Safety Plan has the potential to significantly reduce the burden of disease within five years. This provisional QMRA was based solely on hazard assessment and review of available literature and is the first step in a cycle of setting goals and identifying gaps in data to feed back into the model increasing its accuracy in order that it may used as a tool for decision making and prioritisation of improvements for sustainable drinking-water supply.