eng Science and Education Publishing American Journal of Water Resources 2333-4819 2023-05-23 11 2 41 48 10.12691/ajwr-11-2-1 AJWR20231121 article Anyizi Bertha Nkemnyi nkemnyia@gmail.com 1 Lucy Mange Ndip 2 3 Benedicta Oshuware Oben 4 Oben Pius Mbu 4 Tambekong Talkspeak Arrey 4 Mbeng Ashu Arrey 4 Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, University of Buea Laboratory for Emerging Infectious Diseases, University of Buea, Buea, Cameroon Department of Microbiology and Parasitology, Faculty of Science, University of Buea Pristine or near-pristine freshwater rivers provide numerous ecosystem services to riverine communities. Yet they could be a significant public health threat due to contamination and pollution. This study assessed the disease burden among the population of Akonolinga, on the banks of River Nyong in Cameroon. Semi-structured questionnaires were administered to ten medical facilities within the town. Hospitalization and laboratory diagnosis logs for the year 2020 were reviewed. Results showed that 44.4 ± 1.15% of the respondents had recurrent foodborne diseases between 1 to 10 times a year, and there was strong positive correlation between the rate of foodborne diseases and that of waterborne diseases (rho = 0.881, p = 0.002). Foodborne disease cases were highest during the dry season (66.67 ± 1.73%). Malaria was most prevalent (27.8%) but statistically similar to prevalence of typhoid (22.2%) and diarrhea (22.2%). Bacteria were the major causative agent of diseases, dominated by members of Salmonella (30.3%), Pseudomonas (21.2%) and Escherichia (21.2%). The prevalence of Salmonella was statistically higher than that of Trichomonas, Shigella, Amoeba and Staphylococcus. These results are suggestive of a contaminated environment, poor hygiene etc. which would necessitate behavioural change within the population for better management. http://pubs.sciepub.com/ajwr/11/2/1/ajwr-11-2-1.pdf disease burden bacteria food poisoning waterborne diseases riverine population