The development and assessment of a novel automated detection system for Cryptosporidium in water samples.

摘要

With the introduction of government regulations in the UK pertaining to the presence of Crytosporidium oocysts in drinking water, coming into effect early in the year 2000 the procedure for enumeration has come under close scrutiny. The regulations have highlighted the need for increased traceability of counts, together with the ability to rapidly transfer data for external verification. In addition, many of the laboratories carrying out routine testing will be faced with large numbers of samples to evaluate, and as a consequence, microscope operators may be subject to fatigue. The objective of Genera's research program was to make the microscopic evaluation of water samples more accurate and less prone to errors due to fatigue. The research focussed on the development of a semi automated detection system Quanti-Max? (QMS) for Cryptosporidium oocyst analysis. The QMS system has the ability to perform a 20X scan via a PC screen using a pre-determined scan pattern and with auto focussing. The software has been developed to enable the marking of presumptive features which are reviewed at high magnification (100 X). The FITC, DAPI and DIC Cryptosporidium oocyst images are automatically stored in a unique data file. The software enables remote access to the QMS for external verification to be carried out.Comparative data presented suggests there is no statistical difference (paired -sample test value of P= 0.10) between manual and QMS counts.