The complete lab is ready and I believe it should be available for purchase via Butyl Products soon. I met with Johannes Bousek from Austrian Red Cross/Boku two weeks ago on the Emergency Environmental Health Forum and can confirm that the Helminith test and all related tools are included in it and should be relatively easy to use (the training I was supposed to go on was sadly postponed).

Dear Bipin and Kris,
Have you been able to explore conducting the Helminth eggs test that you mentioned above? We are thinking of conducting some pH and Helminths testes on ecosan dehydrated faeces. Would be interesting to seek to build from your experience.

With the end of this project: www.elrha.org/map-location/microbialslud...l-sludge-monitoring/
see also: www.elrha.org/hif-blog/last-blog-entry/

the field test kit for microbial quality testing of faecal sludge seems also to be available commercially through Butyl Products soon, see the attached presentation for details.



(I am not affiliated with this, but thought it might be interesting to share).

Was a quite interesting workshop, but the plans for a deployable emergency FSM unit are still in early stages (we made some good progress on technology options though). The pure oxygen ATAD plant I proposed as a theoretical concept (see attached short presentation) was seen as more of a novelty though... but lets see who I got thinking about it

There were also a few relatively new products from various companies that we had a chance to get a hands-on.

The raised latrines and flexible biodigesters (both nicely packaged for international deployment, but rather expensive) are nothing too uncommon, but great to have as off the shelf products. See:
www.butylproducts.co.uk/product/butyloo-raised-latrine/
www.butylproducts.co.uk/product-category...on-sewage-isolation/

There was also a prototype for a sludge-transfer station based on a T11 "OXFAM" water storage tank, that due to the internal bladder like liner offers a good smell containment.

This mobile diaphragm pump also seems rather useful: www.butylproducts.co.uk/product/solids-handling-pumps/

There was also a nice presentation on the "plastic bag flush toilet" by Loowatt, see: loowatt.com/technology/ which might be an interesting technology for severely water-stressed areas or in-house toilets for disabled persons. However they are only offered as a full service package with individual units probably too expensive for most use-cases.

The flotac helminith tests, are definitely a nice innovation to make testing a bit easier and quicker, but you still need a skilled microscopist and it is more geared towards fresh feces samples and not fecal sludge (the latter usually requires sample concentration).

Similar to the Loowatt toilet the AKVO Caddisfly is also only available with the rather costly AKVO flow subscription, but it is a very nice way to take the subjectivity out of the use of test-strips and back up results in the cloud.

The fecal sludge mobile lab by BOKU will be piloted soon in Malawi, but overall uses quite standard lab equipment. Interesting however is that they look into the use of these much cheaper analytical tools to replace the totally overpriced lab-grade equippment: www.vernier.com/ (I especially like this cheap turbidity sensor: www.vernier.com/products/sensors/trb-bta/ but that is more for water-treatment projects, mentioned in passing was also this interesting microbial quick-test system: www.vienna-water-monitoring.com/project/coliminder-mobile/ ).

Hi Kris:

Thank you for your prompt response. I'm glad to know that you are visiting Nepal very soon. Let us meet. My email is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. please drop me an email and we can plan for the meeting at ENPHO. I appreciate your help in connecting with a person for the Helminth egg test.

I look forward to seeing you soon in Nepal.

Best,
Bipin.

Hello Bipin,

I will try to figure out who could be the right person to link you (Enpho?) to. In fact I will be coming to Nepal shortly after to work there a few months, so I will try to give Enpho a visit and we could meet in person.

Hi Kris:

Thank you very much for sharing these interesting information. We'd like to explore conducting the Helminth eggs test in the field conditions here in Nepal. Can you please help us connect with the relevant person in this regard?

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best,
Bipin.

Hi Kris

Thanks for this post I really love hearing about new toys and tech in the sector, please do share your thoughts. Maybe we need a reviews section for SuSanA like you get in magazines?!

Esther

Because I will be attending a workshop (Red Cross internal) later this month about faecal sludge field monitoring and emergency sanitation treatment kits, I will have the chance to get some hands-on experience with a few recent innovations in these fields.
I don't know all the details yet, but this looks already very interesting if you want to test helminith eggs under field level conditions:
www.elrha.org/hif-blog/flotac-training-find-helminth-eggs/
www.parassitologia.unina.it/flotac/mini-flotac/?lang=en
www.parassitologia.unina.it/flotac/fill-flotac/?lang=en

I will likely also have the chance to talk to the people behind this project:
www.elrha.org/map-location/microbialslud...l-sludge-monitoring/

Last but not least, there is supposed to be also a presentation on this:
akvo.org/akvo-caddisfly/

I will try to summarize some details when I find the time, but for now: Anyone has some specific questions or topics to follow up on regarding this?