How Rapid Water Testing Can Help the Pacific Islands

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Five Million People Without Safe Water: The Pacific's WASH Gap

Across 15 Pacific Island countries and territories, five million people still lack even basic drinking water services, and nine million live without basic sanitation, according to the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme's 2025 report released during World Water Week.

The problem isn't only infrastructure, it's time.

The gap isn’t only about infrastructure, it's about time. When a contamination event hits a catchment, a lagoon or a village supply, the standard response is to collect a sample, transport it to a laboratory, culture it, and wait days for a result. By the time the numbers come back, the water people are drinking or swimming in has already changed. In a region where cyclones, flooding and drought are becoming more frequent, that lag sits between a community and a timely public health decision. Rapid, portable molecular testing closes part of that gap.

Molecular water results at the point of sampling

The ZiP-P2 is a compact field instrument that runs PCR-comparable molecular assays for faecal indicators and waterborne pathogens, including E. coli, Enterococcus and human-associated Bacteroides, directly at the point of sampling. Results are returned in 10 to 20 minutes, and no cold chain or sample transport are required. Results can be GPS-tagged and time-stamped, so utilities and environmental health teams can map contamination hotspots and act on evidence rather than forecast.

Talk to us about rapid on-site testing

If you work in water security, public health or environmental monitoring across the Pacific, or if you're currently attending the Pacific Water and Wastewater Association Conference & EXPO 2026, we'd love to have a conversation about what rapid on-site testing could do for your programs.