Fundacion-Cantaro-Azul

Description

Dr Snelling established a Next Generation Sequencing platform (MinION) for the Safewater & NICHE research groups using £5,000 allocated by NICHE (Snelling, Dooley & Ternan) provided by the BMSRI. Using this base, Dr Snelling won an Internal Capacity Building Fund from the Society for Applied Microbiology (SFAM; £5,000). Dr Snelling worked for three weeks with Cántaro Azul in San Cristobal, Chiapas, Mexico to establish a MinION sequencing platform there in August 2019. The SFAM award covers a significant part of the incurred costs. This will enable Cántaro Azul to know what pathogens are in the water sources of neglected rural communities. At the El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR) Institute, I trained Cántaro Azul staff to grow & count MS-2 colpihage for testing water treatment devices. MS-2 coliphage testing is essential for World Health Organisation (WHO) water treatment accreditation. From learning to handle MS-2 coliphage, Cántaro Azul will boost their water device treatment testing capacity and be able to design devices faster and more efficiently. Ultimately, this will lead to Cántaro Azul being more effective and having greater health impacts in rural regions.

Period	11 Aug 2019 - 31 Aug 2019
Degree of Recognition	International