Nanosensors for the Detection of Pathogenic Bacteria
The consumption of microbiologically unsafe water poses major health threats and leads to several diseases like diarrhea, typhoid and cholera. Hence, the management of water quality is a growing need for public health and environment in the developing world. Existing methods for pathogen detection face challenges of inadequate monitoring in terms of specificity, rapidity and simplicity. Molecular methods including polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and its advanced version real time PCR can detect pathogens at low levels. However, the requirement of sophisticated instrumentation and trained personnel makes these methods less applicable to field situations. The detection of target pathogens needs improvements to overcome existing drawbacks and should be based on simple, rapid, sensitive and specific methodologies.