LifeStraw: killing waterborne diseases as you drink

Updated - Tuesday 25 July 2006

LifeStraw filters out many of the micro-organisms responsible for causing waterborne diseases like diarrhea, dysentery, typhoid and cholera.

Created by Danish innovator Torben Vestergaard Frandsen the straw is made of plastic and resembles a flute. Inside are filters and a chamber impregnated with iodine. These remove the bacteria from the water as it is drunk.

"You basically just suck the water through it," says Alan Mortensen, business director of the Public Health Water-Bourne Disease Control, which produces the LifeStraw.

It is priced at around US$ 3.50 (EUR 2.77) a straw. Each one will last for around 700 litres, around six months to a year.

More than 60,000 LifeStraws were passed out after the earthquake in Pakistan, and the Finnish mission distributed them in the war-torn region of Northern Uganda. The product is still being perfected, but Vestergaard Frandsen says it is ready to start distribution in the next emergency.

Paul Hetherington of WaterAid suggests that “the LifeStraw could be a very useful tool in certain emergency situations, especially floods where water access is easy but quality poor.” He adds that it is not a good development tool as it lacks sustainability the problem being cost, access to it and the need for a nearby source of any water to use.

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