Aquatest vision
Bridging a gap in the water testing market
Our vision is that by 2017, low-cost water testing devices will be widely used in 80% of developing countries. The devices will be used by water professionals, community groups and part-time/volunteer supply managers who won't need specialist scientific knowledge to use the test kits or interpret the results.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has estimated that water-borne disease causes 1.8 million deaths annually. 1.5 million of these are children under five. If low-cost water testing results in just 10% of these people avoiding contaminated water, 180,000 lives could be saved each year. We believe that:
- developing countries need low cost devices to improve their water testing
- water testing should be done by the people who can act to improve their water. This includes communities, householders and other people responsible for water quality at the point of supply (for example, village wells, bore holes, house taps), as well as water professionals.
- water testing will lead to improvements in the way that water investment is targeted, better ways of managing water and better quality water. This will help to reduce child diarrhoea and other water-borne diseases.
Governments and programmes around the world are responding to this crisis with initiatives such as the Millennium Development Goals. To monitor progress towards these goals, what is needed is a cost-effective, user-friendly, lab-quality but field-based system that can be used in the developing world, particularly in rural settings. Aquatest can offer a solution.