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TESTING METHODS FOR DETECTION OF CRYPTOSPORIDIUM SPP. IN WATER SAMPLES
Citation:
Lindquist, H.D A., M W. Ware, R E. Stetler, AND F W. Schaefer III. TESTING METHODS FOR DETECTION OF CRYPTOSPORIDIUM SPP. IN WATER SAMPLES. Presented at 3rd Seminar on Food and Waterborne Parasitic Zoonoses in the 21th Century, Bangkok, Thailand, December 6-8, 2000.
Impact/Purpose:
1) Refine new, practical methods for the detection of CCL-related and emerging waterborne human protozoa.
2) Perform field tests of devices or methods that have been developed under this task.
3) Evaluate these methods or devices in a variety of water matrices and parasite concentrations.
This work in this task supports CCL2 and 3 and is expected to be completed by 9/07.
Description:
A large waterborne outbreak of cryptosporidiosis in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.A. in 1993 prompted a search for ways to prevent large scale waterborne outbreaks of protozoan parasitoses. Two principle strategies have emerged: risk assessment leading to appropriate treatment and pathogen monitoring. Methods for detecting C. parvum play an integral role in both strategies.
One criticism of current methods for detecting protozoa in water is that they produce results that are highly variable. It is difficult to determine if the methods themselves, or the procedures for testing them, are the source of the variability. If testing procedures are responsible for high variability, then the way in which methods are tested may not provide a fair comparison.
To overcome this problem, the U.S. EPA has developed a set of criteria to aid in the evaluation of detection methods for parasites in water. Application of these criteria has elucidated some of the most important causes of testing variability. As a consequence, the Agency has developed approaches to overcome these pitfalls. The results from comparing several of these methods indicate that a monitoring strategy is not optimal at this time.