• Committed to making a difference
• Wiping out Disease
• Pure and Simple
• After the Flood
• Genius in a Bottle
• Safe wells Save villages

As a preferred provider of water microbiology tests worldwide—with more than 70 global acceptances and approvals to date*— IDEXX works to help scientists, professionals, educators and students do critical work in the field. Donating and underwriting trusted test kits like Colilert® and other water-testing equipment helps these leaders create easier, simpler and more cost-effective solutions to monitor water quality. In this issue of H₂O News, we’re celebrating their success with a few stories.

Disaster relief:
IDEXX assists postdisaster reconstruction efforts after China’s massive earthquake.

IDEXX Asia Business Manager, Richard Lu, works with the Vice Director of China’s CDC.

Relief efforts continue following the May 12th earthquake that devastated the Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province in central China. The China Seismological Bureau (CSB) reported 222 major aftershocks in the area—the most recent one on June 23rd—since the initial earthquake, which registered a magnitude of 8.0. Official figures confirm 69,185 deaths, with 374,171 people injured and 18,467 listed as missing—the worst earthquake to hit China since the 1976 Tangshan earthquake left as many as 11 million people homeless. Approximately 15 million people lived in the affected area.

Using IDEXX tests with China’s CDC.

In letters to China’s National and Sichuan Environmental Monitoring Stations, IDEXX expressed its condolences to the people affected by the disaster and committed to supporting emergency relief and postdisaster reconstruction work in the affected area. To help re-establish the safety of drinking water within the disaster area, IDEXX has donated thousands of Colilert® water microbiology tests and water-testing vessels to China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention. In addition, IDEXX donated rechargeable UV lamps, sealers and incubators to the Environmental Protection Agency in China, along with Colilert and Quanti-Tray®/2000 tests and testing vessels.

Dr. Metcalf shares Colilert® results with 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Mathai of Kenya.

Dr. Robert Metcalf, a professor of biological sciences from the California State University in Sacramento, points out that more than one billion people in the world do not have easy access to safe water. In his work in Africa, he has found that people are eager to learn about how and why water is contaminated and what to do about it. Partnering with IDEXX, Dr. Metcalf relies on the Colilert® protocol as part of a simple system to test for E. coli. Aside from ease of use, reliability and robustness, Dr. Metcalf prefers Colilert because the 10-mL tube size is ideal for sampling, according to World Health Organization guidelines. He also points out that Colilert is excellent for showing the presence/absence of E. coli in water taken from borehole wells and other sources used for drinking water.

Dr. Metcalf has trained government workers in Kenya, who until recently were using obsolete methods. He particularly enjoys working at the local level because people don’t have to wait for government inspection. “The village chiefs know how to conduct water microbiology tests,” he notes.

In a four-year period, Colilert helped the people in one village manage and reduce various outbreaks of waterborne diseases, with results improving over time.

A safe water source in Nepal, verified using Dr. Metcalf’s program.

Dr. Metcalf’s efforts include the use of a solar cooker. Originally designed to cook food, the solar cooker was found to be effective for pasteurizing water without boiling. The cooker pasteurizes 5 liters of water at 65°C over three hours—easy enough to do on a sunny day.

Dr. Metcalf demonstrates the ease of using Colilert to villagers in Africa.

Dr. Metcalf dedicates eight months of each year to field work in international microbiology. During that time, he assists in the distribution of water purifiers through Solar Cookers International (SCI), a small NGO, and promotes the use of Colilert to verify that the water is safe to drink. SCI is one of many organizations trying to make safe water accessible around the world.

For more information about SCI, visit solarcookers.org.

Pure and simple:
Research scientists and educators rely on basic water purification systems and IDEXX water-testing products to empower people in developing areas.

Dr. Christine Stauber, a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering at the University of North Carolina, together with Anna Fabiszewski and Kaida Liang, has spent time during the last several years working with villagers in the Dominican Republic, Honduras and Ghana to ensure safe drinking water. While in the Dominican Republic, she found a promising locally made sand filtration system. Her goal was to document its effectiveness while working on her doctorate as a Fulbright scholar.

Preparing vessels for water testing in the Laboratorio Mirna Peña in Bonoa, Dominican Republic.

Partnering with IDEXX, Dr. Stauber performed more than 10 months of sampling using a Quanti-Tray® Sealer, a small incubator and Colilert® supplies, including the Quanti-Tray®/2000. She visited approximately 150 households every two weeks and collected drinking water samples. Before biosand filtration, Colilert exhibited high concentrations of E. coli in the drinking water.

Testing for E. coli in the Laboratorio Mirna Peña in Bonoa, Dominican Republic.

After biosand filtration, the E. coli concentration improved to potable levels. Her research will continue using a new lightweight plastic version of the system called the Hydraid Biosand Water Filter, manufactured and promoted by International Aid, an NGO based in Michigan.

 

Dr. Stauber prefers working with Colilert® and Quanti- Tray® because, "They’re extremely easy to teach in a resource-limited setting. You don’t need a lot of lab equipment."

 

According to Dr. Strauber, Colilert and Quanti-Tray allow you to “work across a wider range of volume with one sample than you can with membrane filtration.” Working with products she can count on is a key reason Dr. Stauber is grateful that, through her partnership with IDEXX, she can continue her research.

Katrina hit on August 28 and 29, 2005. After the levees broke and the flooding began, the state needed help from all corners because the central laboratory in New Orleans was damaged and inoperable. I suggested that we contact IDEXX because I had heard how they helped out in catastrophic events and this definitely qualified as catastrophic. I then received a call from IDEXX offering assistance. IDEXX committed to send us supplies we desperately needed—12 cases of Colilert® and 12 boxes of sterile disposable sample bottles (enough to analyze 2,400 samples) and an incubator. However, they were having difficulty getting these supplies to our location due to the devastation. It took a number of calls and false starts, but they found a trucking firm to deliver it to my location. Then, the driver refused to come because of the chaos and crime in New Orleans. Even though IDEXX said they would try to come up with another plan, two of my colleagues offered to go in their own vehicle on their own time over Labor Day weekend to pick up the supplies in Lafayette.

I would like to say how much we appreciate IDEXX for everything they did to help us out during very trying times. We used the supplies to run samples for surrounding parishes that were affected by Katrina. Louisiana’s central laboratory in New Orleans is in the process of being recertified and coming back online almost three years after Katrina. I would also like to acknowledge my crew, consisting of Nancy, Lloyd and Ray, who worked tirelessly to help me keep a pledge of help to the surrounding parishes in analyzing their samples from August through December 2005.

Hillary Holt, a freshman at Union High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, made a splash with her recent science fair project. Hillary decided to evaluate water purity in a variety of bottled waters. Working closely with a mentor at the Mohawk Water Treatment Plant in Tulsa, Hillary learned how to use an IDEXX SimPlate® for HPC to evaluate samples. She tested several American and imported bottled waters plus Tulsa city water and a control of sterile water. Hillary was surprised to find such a variance in bacteria levels among her samples.

Hillary presented her results to a panel of more than 10 judges and went on to take first place in the science fair, gaining regional press attention. Hillary is more interested than ever in science and is thinking of new ideas for future science projects.

Steve Obenhaus, a math teacher at Olathe North High School in Kansas, has a passion beyond expanding young minds. Every chance he gets, Steve heads down to rural Haiti where he helps villagers find safe sources of water.

Steve and his wife, a nurse, volunteer with an organization called Maison de Naissance, or Birth House, which offers prenatal, maternity and early childhood care to young Haitian families. Steve’s initial involvement entailed GPS mapping the roadless area so that doctors and nurses could make house calls. While undertaking this project, Steve was able to track additional data. His observations of living conditions, high infant mortality rates and low infant birth rates led him to correlate poor water quality to poor health outcomes, and further analysis proved it. Steve realized that without safe water, medical assistance could only go so far. Securing safe water to save lives became his mission.

Back home in Kansas, he called a manager from the Olathe Water District and picked his brain. That’s where IDEXX comes in. Like many water utilities around the world, the Olathe Water District relies on IDEXX Colilert® products. The manager put Steve in touch with the local IDEXX representative. Since then, Steve and the villagers have been using donated and discounted IDEXX Colilert®-18 and Colilert® assays to do year-round testing on area wells. Because it’s so easy to work with, Steve is able to train villagers to continue regular testing.

In addition to regular, rigorous testing, Steve and other Kansas-based volunteers and students have helped to determine how and where to dig deeper, safer, more convenient wells to ensure more mothers and children have easy access to clean water. Steve returns at least once a year to monitor developments and look for new ways to help improve health and safety for the women and children who rely on Maison de Naissance.


Steve Obenhaus is this year’s winner for Kansas of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math Teaching.

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*Reference available upon request.