SENSITIVITY OF HOST STRAINS AND HOST-RANGE OF COLIPHAGES ISOLATED FROM FINNISH AND NICARAGUAN WASTE-WATER

Coliphages are regarded as possible indicators of enteric viruses in d rinking water and waters used for recreational purposes. They can be d etected in water by a rapid, simple and inexpensive method, which does not require special equipment or specially skilled personnel. In spit e of extensive studies of coliphages any agreement about a standard me thod has not yet been reached. One of the questions that has delayed t he decision is the choice of a good host strain.In the present study, the ability of more than 40 Escherichia coli strains to detect phages in effluents of several wastewater treatment plants in Finland was tes ted. The 12 most sensitive strains were selected for a study of sensit ivity to pure cultures of coliphages isolated from Finnish and Nicarag uan wastewaters. The sensitivity of the host strains was found to be s imilar to phages isolated from both countries. Two strains were sensit ive to 20 of the 25 somatic coliphages tested. Three strains had almos t identical patterns of sensitivity to male-specific RNA-phages, two o f the strain were sensitive to all of the 13 and one strain to 12 phag es tested. According to the results the same host strains can be used in countries where the climate is very different.