A comprehensive review of the water box performance was carried out in December and early January. The Water Box Volunteers group met by Zoom on January 13th, and reached a decision to postpone distribution of water boxes to test households in Uganda until we have confirmed pathogen reduction performance which meets the standards for the World Health Organization’s 2-star rating. A fourth round of testing by a U.S. lab has been initiated, with results expected in the second half of February.

Paul Berg returned to Uganda at the beginning of February. This trip is mainly in connection with a separate project, but it will give him the opportunity to meet with our water box field test collaborators for a day or two before he returns to the U.S. later this month.

We are fairly confident that the lab tests underway now will confirm that the field test units, when operated for two minutes on external power, will meet WHO’s 2-star criteria for pathogen reduction. Assuming that is so, when the results of the tests become available, then our collaborators in Uganda will begin introducing the water boxes to test households in late February. The test period is planned to run for 4-6 weeks in March and April. Compilation, analysis, and reporting on field test results is expected to take an additional month or two.

More details will be available in an update to the https://dayzerointernational.org/the-water-box/phase-2/ webpage which is being prepared at the same time as this blog post.