
OUR TECHNOLOGY – Legionella Detection
There are several approaches to controlling the proliferation of pathogens in industrial waters (legionella detection). It is possible to prevent the appearance of bacteria by using large quantity of chemicals or disinfecting procedures. However, these methods represent significant monetary costs, as well as serious indirect impacts such as premature wear of the infrastructure and harmful environmental releases. An alternative way is to do the point analysis of water to determine its bacterial content, in order to assess the amount of chemicals needed.
Traditionally, only specialized laboratories had competencies to perform those kind of analysis by bacterial culture or by quantitative PCR method (polymerase chain reaction). Since 2012, alternative products have emerged on the market. Those products are disposable tests, operated similarly to a pregnancy test. They employ a simple detection process called Lateral flow immunochromatographic assay. All techniques described above possess certain disadvantages, which pushed scientists to search for a new, more efficient and practical solution.
BioAlert Solutions introduced the products of a new generation. Our technology addresses weak points of each detection solution previously mentioned, and provides businesses with a reliable and economical monitoring solution.
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The comparison of the technologies are presented in the table below
Criteria | Laboratories | Testing sticks | BioAlert Solutions | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Detection method | Culture | qPCR | Lateral flow immunochromatographic assay | BioAlert Lp15 technology |
Speed | 7 to 14 days | 48 hours | 15-25 mins | 30 mins |
Detection limits (total) | 100 to 500 CFU | 60 to 250 GU | 100 to 200 CFU | 10 GU |
Robustness (sensitivity) | ≈ 70% | ≈ 95% | Varies greately between brands (≈ 80%) | ≈ 97% |
Reliability (specificity) | Average | High | Low | High |
Frequency of testing | Point, 1 per measurement | Point, 1 per measurement | Point, 1 per measurement | Daily, 1 per day |
Handling requirements | Human involvement (sampling and processing) |
Human involvement (sampling and processing) |
Human involvement (sampling and analysis) |
No human intervention Fully autonomous |
As opposed to laboratory and test sticks, BioAlert Solutions’ technology has a number of advantages such as:
- Combining both high accuracy and fast on-site results;
- Monitoring environments on a daily basis;
- Eliminating staff, labor and shipping costs;
- Entrusting reliability that exceeds current industry standards.