Worms in the Water: Are Chemical Treatments and UV Too Risky?

"That is not a chance I would want to take, given the potential consequences, particularly when it is so easy to carry a filter or other treatment device/chemical. The thing that bothers me here is the imprecision of the concept."

Nor I.

The filter with cloth method is one that is recommended to the poorest of poor.
Even then they are taught to use a 3 day, 3 pot settling system and additionally if possible use SODIS UV disinfection. (A 2 liter pop bottle in the bright sun for 4 or so
hours). This has been proven effective in stopping cholera.

If one is worried about worm eggs and is inclined to use UV or chemical treatment to save
weight over a filter, it would seem to me a light pre-filter would catch those eggs.
A light pre- filter could be a piece of cloth, if one does the research to find the
appropriate material. Additionally flocculants could serve the same purpose.

Oh, and Tom,

No one said a hanky would work for any of this.

Come on, grow a pair. ;^)

I'm an avid coon hunter. My area has a very healthy Coon population.(one reason I hunt them, they eat my Turkey eggs!) Coons spend most of their time feeding around creeks, lakes and rivers. So it is understandable why the eggs would be in water. However, I've drank alot of water while coon hunting. None of which was ever filtered. Also drank from the same water sources while Deer, Turkey and Squirrel hunting. This encompasses 7 1/2 months of the year. Also, the majority of my hiking trips are in wilderness areas of the South, all coon infested.

I'm not dead yet. Still coherent as well. Hope this helps.

ps….if you just hike in the day and dont walk the banks of water sources looking for coon tracks, then you won't know if you have coons or not. That is unless you hike in areas with no tall timber(because coons sleep in trees).

"Oh, and Tom,

No one said a hanky would work for any of this.

Come on, grow a pair. ;^)"

Ya got me there, David. Guess I'd better get on with that overdue refraction.

I confess to being a little surprised about the folded cotton sari recommendation, though. I've spent quite a bit of time in India down through the years and the saris of the poorest of the poor are often pretty threadbare. Pore size would be well above 100 microns in many cases, a moot point if a significant number of the cholera bacteria were free floating since their size is 1-5 microns. The sunlight sterilization technique sounds like the best bet to me in those situations.