Device for testing the effectiveness of disinfectants on protozoan parasites
OwnerEng-Hong Leeinventor
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Abstract
This invention relates to a device for testing the efficacy of any disinfectant treatment, such as water disinfectants or equipment disinfectants. The device includes a culture of live unsporulated free-living protozoan parasites. If the disinfectant treatment successfully kills all or a substantial number of parasites, then the treatment is effective. One can determine whether the parasites have been killed or not by exposing them to sporulation conditions, and if they sporulate after exposure to the disinfectant treatment, then they were not killed by the disinfectant treatment.
Claims20
A device for testing the efficacy of a disinfectant treatment comprising
- (a) a culture of live unsporulated free-living protozoan parasites and
- (b) optionally, a receptacle for facilitating contacting of the disinfectant treatment with the culture.
A method for testing the efficacy of a disinfectant treatment comprising
- (a) contacting a culture of live unsporulated protozoan parasites in the free-living stage with an effective amount of the disinfectant treatment, and
- (b) determining the percentage of protozoan parasites that have survived,
- wherein the culture of (a) is stored under conditions that prevent sporulation prior to the contacting.
A method for testing the efficacy of a disinfectant treatment comprising steps in the following order:
- (a) obtaining a stock culture of live protozoan parasite oocysts in the free-living stage containing a known and substantial quantity of live unsporulated oocysts and a known quantity of sporulated oocysts wherein the stock culture is stored under conditions that prevent sporulation;
- (b) determining the ratio of the sporulated oocysts to the total number of oocysts in the stock culture of oocysts;
- (c) exposing the stock culture of oocysts to the disinfectant treatment;
- (d) exposing the thus treated culture of oocysts to sporulation inducing conditions;
- (e) determining the number of unsporulated oocysts and sporulated oocysts in the treated culture;
- (f) determining the ratio of the sporulated oocysts to the total number of oocysts in the treated culture of oocysts;
- and
- (g) determining the effectiveness of the disinfectant treatment by comparing the ratio determined in step (b) with the ratio determined in step (f) and calculating the sporulation rate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.