Austrian Hygiene Award

Austrian Hygiene Award for Publication of the ICC Water & Health

Within the frame of the 22nd Dosch Symposium of Hospital Hygiene, that took place in Velden/Wörthersee from June 3 to 5, 2013, the Austrian Hygiene Award was awarded for a publication of the ICC Water and Health.

The Austrian Hygiene Award 2013 was awarded to Mag. Sonja Schauer, a PhD student in her last phase, The honoured publication with the title "Rapid and Sensitive Quantification of Vibrio cholerae and Vibrio mimicus Cells in Water Samples by Use of Catalyzed Reporter Deposition Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization Combined with Solid-Phase Cytometry", was published in the renowned Journal "Applied and Environmental Microbiology" by the end of 2012*.

Within this study a novel cell-based detection protocol was developed to enable rapid and sensitive quantification of Vibrio cholerae, the bacterial agent causing cholera and other infectious dieseases, and its nearest relative V. mimicus in water samples. The combination of fluorescence-in-situ-hybridisation and solid-phase cytometry allows for the specific enumeration of extremely low concentrations of these bacterial pathogens in natural environmental samples. From sampling to result, the novel procedure takes less than 24 hours. Due to the facts that (i) no international standard exists for quantification of V.cholerae/V.mimicus via culture based techniques, and (ii) that the usually used "most-probable-number" approaches are very tedious, this novel method can be considered as highly useful for ecological and risk assessment studies.

*Schauer S, Sommer R, Farnleitner AH and Kirschner AKT (2012): Rapid and Sensitive Quantification of Vibrio cholerae and Vibrio mimicus Cells in Water Samples by Use of Catalyzed Reporter Deposition Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization Combined with Solid-Phase Cytometry. Applied and Environmental Microbiology (78) 20: 7369-7375