Spartan Bioscience, creator of an on-site Legionella DNA test, announced a partnership with LiquiTech, a provider in Legionella prevention solutions for the healthcare, commercial, and hospitality industries.

Through this strategic partnership, LiquiTech will integrate Spartan’s innovative environmental DNA testing platform to provide a new approach to detecting Legionella contamination. With Spartan’s test, Liquitech can detect Legionella contamination in real-time and provide immediate remediation using their multi-barrier approach to dramatically improve patient and guest safety. This will provide unparalleled control of Legionnaires’ disease in health care and hospitality environments.

“Our organization is always looking for innovative, proven solutions that allow for real-time detection of waterborne pathogen threats and Spartan's environmental testing platform is unmatched in the world,” said Steve Schira, President and CEO of LiquiTech. “With Spartan’s on-site test, LiquiTech can provide clients with a complete and integrated Legionella solution, from rapid on-site detection to immediate treatment and validation.”

For the healthcare sector, rapid detection and remediation are critical because sick and elderly people are at the highest risk of contracting Legionnaires’. In 2017, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 76 per cent of U.S. jurisdictions reported cases of Legionnaires’ in healthcare facilities. Additionally, they found 1 in 4 people who become infected at a health care facility will die, compared to 1 in 10 people overall.

For these reasons, the Centers for Medicare & Medicare services (CMS) require hospitals to maintain a Legionella management program including a testing protocol. The problem is that the traditionalLegionella detection method is lab culture testing in an off-site lab, which can take up to 14 days to provide a result. This turnaround time is too slow because Legionella can grow to outbreak levels in as few as 7 days. Additionally, culture has been found to have a false negative rate of 62 percent because Legionella dies on the way to the lab.(4) In comparison, Spartan’s test provides highly-accurate results in 45 minutes using a Nobel-Prize winning chemistry called quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR). qPCR is commonly used for medical diagnostics because it is faster and more accurate than culture.

“LiquiTech is a leader in water safety because of innovative technologies such as their Legionella copper-silver ionization solution,” said Paul Lem, M.D., CEO of Spartan Bioscience. “We look forward to working with LiquiTech to prevent the risk of Legionella in water systems and to bring additional waterborne pathogen tests to the health care sector.”

Liquitech and Spartan are showcasing Spartan’s on-site Legionella DNA test at the American Society for Health Care Engineering (ASHE) Conference from July 14-17 at the Baltimore Convention Center in Baltimore, MD.