Application of dose-response data for assessing the health effects of exposure to faecal-oral pathogens through consumption of treated drinking water

The dose-response relation provides an understanding of the number of pathogens required to cause infection or illness in a susceptible host. This report provides a brief review of the data available and modelling approaches used to undertake such an assessment. Generally, data was limited and relied on studies undertaken with human volunteers, animal models and outbreaks and extrapolating the effects of low doses proved a particular challenge. The knowledge of pathogen dose-response relationships was not considered to be directly relevant to operational management of the microbiological safety of drinking water. Instead, these relationships are of importance to an effective quantitative microbial risk assessment that could be applied to specify log removal credits for water treatment to satisfy a health-based target.