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Objective:To identify the prevalence of Acanthamoeba in drinking water treatment plants during the course of the purification processes.Methods:Samples were taken from two drinking water purification plants and moni-tored for the presence of Acanthamoeba in order to estimate the removal capacity of treatment methods em-ployed.Water samples were collected at each step in the purification,during the one year survey,and ana-lysed for the presence of Acanthamoeba spp.by plating on bacterial-seeded plates.Results:The results showed that amoebae were present in surface raw waters in 100 % of the samples tested.Acanthamoeba spp.were iso-lated from 71 % and 57 % of the water samples collected from post flat-bottom clarifier 1 and post-sedimenta-tion plant respectively.Considering the outflow drinking waters,the removal capacity was 100 % in both puri-fication plants monitored.The occurrence of Acanthamoeba was not associated with seasonality.Conclusion:These findings confirm that water purification plants employing methods of flocculation,sedimentation,and fil-tration in combination with activated charcoal filtration,ozonisation and chlorination exhibited sufficient Acan-thamoeba removal capacity and the presence of amoebae in the tap water may be due to older plumbing,water storage tanks,tap water hygiene,and /or environmental settings.