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Waterborne pathogens present major public health concerns because of the associated high mortality, morbidity and cost of treatment. Consumption of and contact with water contaminated by faeces is a significant risk factor for transmitting these organisms to humans. Their detection in a water sample is critical to ascertain potential risks to humans. They are relatively low in concentrations in surface waters, making their detection a challenge. Campylobacter is targeted here because it is one of the leading causes of enteric diseases globally, and consensus on the superiority of centrifugation over filtration, and vice versa, to recover Campylobacter spp. from river water samples for detection, has yet to be. Therefore, for this study river water sample was processed by combining both methods in a single set-up to concentrate Campylobacter spp. cells from water samples. This method of combining centrifugation and filtration can be expanded to other bacterial waterborne pathogens of public health importance. • Concentrating cells by centrifugation (14,000 × g for 30 min) to collect the pellets, followed by membrane filtration (using 0.45 µm) of the supernatant to trap any remaining suspended cells, and then pooling both pellet and residue presents an effective method for obtaining a satisfactory quantitative recovery of waterborne pathogens, such as Campylobacter spp. from environmental waters. • This is a critical need for quantitative microbial risk assessment studies.