Pseudalert, ‘the 24-hour test for detection of Pseudomonas aeruginosa’, has now been accepted by the UK Standing Committee of Analysts for the analysis of drinking water, and is specified as a recommended method in the Committee’s ‘Blue Book’ publication, The Microbiology of Drinking Water (MoDW) Part 8 – Methods for the isolation and enumeration of Aeromonas and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
Launched into the UK healthcare sector by IDEXX in 2014, Pseudalert facilitates rapid identification of P. aeruginosa in hospital water systems using ‘an innovative bacterial enzyme technology’. The test gives either a confirmed presence/absence or a quantified result in only 24 hours, ‘less than half the time taken by traditional agar culture methods’. Pseudalert is also ‘very sensitive’, and can detect P. aeruginosa at levels as low as 1 cfu in standard 100 mL samples.
The company said: “Being specified in The Microbiology of Drinking Water Part 8 means Pseudalert is fully validated to be used to undertake the microbiological examination of water samples for P. aeruginosa in a UK healthcare environment under the guidelines laid out in HTM 04-01 Part B: Safe water in healthcare premises. Published comparative studies, undertaken at independent laboratories, showed positive results for Pseudalert against current agar-based methods.”
ADSM
