Aquagenx is presenting the Compartment Bag Test, a new microbial water quality test that lets anyone, anywhere determine if drinking water contains E. coli bacteria and poses a health risk.
Chapel Hill, NC – September 17, 2013 – Aquagenx, LLC is exhibiting its Compartment Bag Test at the 3rd International Water Association Development Congress & Exhibition in Nairobi, Kenya on October 14-17, 2013. The Compartment Bag Test (CBT) is a new microbial water quality test that enables ongoing water quality testing and monitoring in low resource settings.
Dr. Ku McMahan, co-founder of Aquagenx and co-inventor of the CBT, is also presenting a poster paper at the International Water Association (IWA) Development Congress & Exhibition, “Evaluation of the Compartment Bag Test for the Detection and Quantification of E. coli and H2S Bacteria in Drinking Water in Resource Limited Settings.”
“We’re excited to present the CBT at the IWA Development Congress,” says Dr. Mark Sobsey, co-founder of Aquagenx and co-inventor of the CBT who is a Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health. “Drinking water in developing countries is rarely tested and monitored for quality. Lack of testing is very common in rural and peri-urban settings and at the household level. Developing countries need to know where water is safe or unsafe in order to prevent disease and high mortality rates due to unsafe drinking water. Water contaminated by fecal bacteria is an unnecessary crisis that can be overcome by testing that informs actions to make and keep water safe.”
“All the investment in the world to improve water sources doesn’t help if water isn’t regularly monitored for quality to ensure it remains safe to drink,” continues Sobsey. “It’s been extremely difficult and costly to monitor water quality in low resource settings. The CBT is a game changer because it’s a portable, simple, cost effective test that lets any organization, community or individual monitor drinking water anywhere without electricity, a lab or highly trained technicians.
“The CBT is also the ideal water quality monitoring test for determining safe water access to meet the United Nations Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals that will likely include policies for ongoing microbial water quality monitoring,” concludes Sobsey.
Aquagenx will be at Booth 10 at the 3rd IWA Development Congress & Exhibition. Congress attendees and delegates are invited to visit the booth and to see a CBT Kit.
About Aquagenx:
Aquagenx, LLC is a social enterprise formed around years of research and development, led by Dr. Mark Sobsey and Dr. Ku McMahan at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health, to develop methods that improve monitoring of drinking water in low resource settings and help prevent the millions of deaths that occur annually due to contaminated drinking water. This research led to the development and commercialization of the Compartment Bag Test (CBT).
The CBT is the only portable, self-contained, household level water quality test that detects and quantifies E. coli levels in a World Health Organization 100mL standard sample, requires no electricity or lab, provides built-in decontamination and requires no incubator at temperatures above 25 degrees C. It eliminates costs for refrigeration, sample transportation, cold chain, lab sample analysis and specialized technicians.