All articles tagged with #sewage surveillance
Polio virus was detected in London sewage for the tenth time since 2024, days after the UK announced funding cuts to global eradication efforts. Experts say sewage detections don’t mean paralytic cases but signal ongoing transmission risk in areas with low vaccination uptake, highlighting concerns that funding reductions could undermine surveillance and outbreak response despite continued vaccination campaigns.
Wastewater surveillance is increasingly being used to monitor disease outbreaks by studying pathogens in sewage, providing early warnings of infectious diseases and aiding in intervention efforts. This method has been traditionally used to track specific deadly pathogens, but now it's being expanded to monitor a wider variety of infectious diseases, including respiratory pathogens like influenza and SARS-CoV-2. New technology platforms are making data collection more efficient, and the impact of wastewater surveillance is likely to be significant in managing disease outbreaks in low-income nations. Additionally, this surveillance could help in predicting the evolution of common viruses, detecting antibiotic resistance genes, and potentially catching future epidemic outbreaks or pandemics in their earliest stages.