Culturing anaerobic bacteria fron clinical samples 15 beyond the reach of most laboratorios from developing countries, due to high cost of basic equipment, such as the anaerobic jar, wich cost upwards of US $ 500 per unit.  In an effort to provide a lower cost alternativa to this problem, we built and evaluate an inexpensive anaerobic jar made out of sections of ("polyvinil carbonate") PVC pipes with a transparent plastic acrylic top.  This custom made jar tested in parallel with a commercial anaerobic jar (BBL), using GasPak envelopes to generale an anaerobic atmosphere in both jars.  To evaluate performance. serial tendilutions of cultures of Clostridium botulinum ATCC 1949), Clostridium sporogenes (ATCC 7955) and bacteria collection stock of University of Costa Rica (UCR), Clostridium haemolyticum, Clostridium histolyticum and Clostridium novy, and were plated onto blood agar plates and incubated using both the commercial and the custom built jar to obtain the number of colony forming units per milliliter (CFU/ml) of undiluted culture.  Blood agar plates wvere also inoculated with C. tetani and incubated in both types of jars to observe swarming.  Counts of CFU/ml from all strains and the strains and the swarming of C. tetani were similar in both jars.  This is noteworthy since the cost of the customized jar is only 5% that of the commercial jar.

Anaerobiosis; anaerobic; clostridia