An international consortium led by the University of Bristol has received a US$ 13 million (EUR 8.9 million) grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop Aquatest, a low-cost hand-held device to detect E.coli in water.

The device, which is still being developed, will consist of a small cylinder containing ten separate tubes. A small sample of water (about 50 ml) is collected and left to rest at ambient temperature for 24-36 hours. Colour changes in each tube give information about the quality of the water. The more tubes that change colour, the greater the contamination. These bands of quality will show, for example, that the water might be safe for healthy adults, but not for children or the sick. The test will be sensitive enough to detect five E.coli colonies in the 50ml sample. Accompanying information will include advice on what action to take if contamination is detected.

The project' s five major activities and leaders are:

1. Aquatest device development - University of Bristol
2. field studies in India and South Africa - University of California, Berkeley
3. market analysis and licensing - PATH
4. promoting uptake - World Health Organisation
5. coordination - University of Bristol.

The University of Cape Town, South Africa, will develop a cellphone-based water quality data collection system.

Web site: Bristol University - Aquatest Research Programme

Contact: Jenny Knapp, Aquatest project manager, Water and Health Research Centre, University of Bristol, UK, aquatest-info@bristol.ac.uk

Source: University of Bristol, 13 Nov 2007

Tags: water quality