Working toward improved monitoring of Cryptosporidium and Giardia (oo)cysts in water samples: testing alternatives to elution and immunomagnetic separation from USEPA Method 1623.1

Table 1 Costs and time required per sample for each combination of techniques tested in this study

Approach	Costs (in CAD) **	Time required *
USEPA Method 1623.1	1000$	6 h
USEPA elution with microfiltration	570$	4 h
Alternative elution with IMS	900$	5 h
Alternative elution with microfiltration	350$	3 h

^*The time here excludes preparation of microscopic slides and observation in microscopy (approximately 10 h) since the duration of these steps is identical for each approach
^**Costs calculated include consumables and equipment only. The cost of equipment was amortized on a hundred samples. The detailed analysis of the costs is presented in the Additional file 1 (Table S1).

ISSN: 1756-0500