UNAIR NEWS For his determination to study bacteria in the water of Surabaya, Dr. Eduardus Bimo Aksono, Drh., M.Kes had an opportunity to present his research in Indonesia Research and Innovation Expo(IRIEX) 2016. It was in the top three researches on life sciences. IRIEX was an event initiated by Board of Academic Product Development and Intellectual Property Right (LPA-HKI) in the celebration of 62nd Dies Natalis of 51动漫.
There are three clusters of researches for IRIEX, life sciences, social sciences, and health sciences. To get to this achievement, Bimo had to competed with at least 20 papers. Bimo presented his paper titled 淕enetic Diversity of Legionella spLocal Isolation in Risk Samples as Prevention and Control Measures of New Emerging Disease in Surabaya.
The Legionellosis disease is an acute respiratory infection caused by bacteria called Legionella pneumophiliaand other species of Legionella. This bacteria can cause some diseases from light cough, fever, and Pneumonia.
It is all started from an Australian tourist who visited Bali. When he was back in his country, he got sick and died. From the research, there was an indication of Legionella infection and the bacterial infection was from Bali.
From that incident, Bimo and his team conducted research to some locations considered as the origin of the infection. They took blood samples of people who work with water container, people in the airport and work with pools.
淏ut in the development, I was more interested in the source of the infection, not the infection in human body. Thus, I always inform that the bacteria like being in the water, either warm or cold, said Bimo.
淚 tried to identify the samples of water in Surabaya. They were from the water container in houses, salt water, ground well water, tap water and water in pools, he added.
The research was aimed to get the source of Legionella bacterial infection on the water. He wanted to make sure the type of Legionella bacteria existing in the water as there are 30 types of Legionella bacteria, one of them is Legionella pneumophilawhich is infectious.
Legionella pneumophilatype 1 has caused an epidemic in America. I wanted to know, was there Legionella type 1 in Indonesia, especially in Surabaya? From the result, the water in Surabaya is positive containing Legionella pneumophila, he said.
From 36 samples tested, there are 12 showed positive results. Those 12 samples were four from well water and eight from the tap water. But from them, the Legionella pneumophila was not type 1, the dangerous one, but Legionella pneumophilatype 8, 9, and 12. 淚t means,Legionella pneumophilain Surabaya is not the infectious type, he said.
The research lasted for two years. He hoped that from his research, we can develop diagnostic kit to detect Legionella, especiallyLegionellawhich is in water. (*)
Author : Binti Q. Masruroh
Editor : Dilan Salsabila
