In July, Cell-Life attended the first meeting for the EU-funded AQUATEST project in Oxford.

The project is a preparatory study for the development of a low-cost water quality test and associated management systems for use in developing countries and in disasters/emergencies. Other project partners include the Universities of Bristol and Southampton, the World Health Organisation, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and a French commercial company, and AES-Chemunex SA. While access to clean water is universally important, people living with HIV/Aids are particularly susceptible to waterborne disease, and UNAIDS recognises that the provision of clean water "must be part of an overall HIV care, treatment and support package".

Cell-Life's contribution as the African partner in the project involves research into the development of systems for data collection, storage and reporting. Such systems must ensure that test results are made available to those responsible for reacting to them, using context-appropriate technologies ranging from paperforms to more complex IT systems and GIS. As always our commitment is to contribute to the use of Open Source technologies for all the software development.