USE OF DEFINED SUBSTRATE TECHNOLOGY AND A NOVEL PROCEDURE FOR ESTIMATING THE NUMBERS OF ENTEROCOCCI IN WATER

A new procedure based on defined substrate technology for the detectio n (Enterolert(R)) and enumeration (QuantiTray(TM)) of enterococci in w ater has been evaluated and been shown to give results which are more accurate and faster to obtain than with the traditional membrane filtr ation method. Enterolert(R) detected enterococci in more samples than did membrane filtration and had fewer false positive results. None of these differences were significant. Comparison of the counts of organi sms obtained with QuantiTray(TM) with those obtained with membrane fil tration showed that the correlation coefficient was 0.91.