ur wastewater is much more than waste. The sewage flowing below our feet can provide early warning that diseases like COVID-19 are spreading, help us understand how they spread, and empower us to mitigate their potentially devastating impact. As countries discuss a global agreement to tackle future pandemics, they should make the monitoring of wastewater a key consideration in ongoing negotiations. Wastewater surveillance is cost effective and has enormous potential to strengthen global preparedness as we seek ways to better respond to future health emergencies.
Since the first cluster of COVID-19 cases reported on 31 December 2019, scientists across the globe have been constantly monitoring the evolution of SARS-CoV-2. Omicron was not the first variant, and it will not be the last. Public health organizations are braced for the possibility that future variants could be more infectious and more easily transmissible. Current methods of monitoring have added to the already enormous strain on healthcare systems worldwide. Challenges these systems face include scarcity of available medical supplies, understaffed healthcare personnel, technical and financial resources, inadequate diagnostic tools, and limited access to clinical testing – especially in developing countries.
Wastewater surveillance could be a powerful tool in helping mitigate this strain. As wastewater surveillance uses pooled samples from the population, it is less expensive than testing individuals. It provides a valuable approach in the toolbox for monitoring COVID-19 in the general population.
Working like a snapshot of population health, wastewater surveillance is a strategic sampling and testing of wastewater. It enables scientists to detect diseases and their prevalence within a community in real-time, and track clusters or hotspots. Critically, it even captures the presence of SARS-CoV-2 shed by people without symptoms. These asymptomatic cases would otherwise be underreported in health surveillance.
In some cities, SARS-CoV-2 has been detected in wastewater samples which were collected earlier than the first reported cases of COVID-19. This demonstrates how, if implemented systematically and regularly, the technique can allow early detection of outbreaks which could potentially become future pandemics. Although wastewater surveillance has been used in the past for different purposes (in the 1940s it was used to track polio outbreaks in the United States), the COVID-19 pandemic underlines the importance of this cost-effective tool for global public health, pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response.
Due to the current high cost of clinical testing to curb COVID-19, there is a need to implement a cost-effective mass surveillance approach for monitoring the disease in populations. The evidence from a vast number of scientific studies suggests that the inclusion of wastewater surveillance in systematic testing strategies at the regional or national level will be a solution to complement the healthcare system.
Last year, the World Health Assembly met in a Special Session, the second-ever since WHO’s creation in 1948, and agreed to launch a process to develop a historic global accord on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response. It established an intergovernmental negotiating body to draft and negotiate this international instrument. Given the lessons learned from the current COVID-19 pandemic on the benefits of wastewater surveillance, this powerful public health tool must be a central consideration among Members of the World Health Organization in the ongoing negotiations on a pandemic treaty.
While there is a growing awareness of the value of wastewater to track and prevent the spread of diseases, let us also not forget that water itself is a valuable resource that is increasingly under threat from climate change and we need to work together to protect and manage water sustainably.
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How to Fight Pandemics Through Wastewater Surveillance
Wastewater treatment plant. Photo by Ivan Bandura via Unsplash.
April 19, 2022
One important lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic is how powerful a weapon wastewater surveillance can be in monitoring and contain future outbreaks. Governments discussing a global agreement for tackling future pandemics should utilize this tool, writes UNU-IAS researcher Dr. Sadhana Shrestha.
O
ur wastewater is much more than waste. The sewage flowing below our feet can provide early warning that diseases like COVID-19 are spreading, help us understand how they spread, and empower us to mitigate their potentially devastating impact. As countries discuss a global agreement to tackle future pandemics, they should make the monitoring of wastewater a key consideration in ongoing negotiations. Wastewater surveillance is cost effective and has enormous potential to strengthen global preparedness as we seek ways to better respond to future health emergencies.
Since the first cluster of COVID-19 cases reported on 31 December 2019, scientists across the globe have been constantly monitoring the evolution of SARS-CoV-2. Omicron was not the first variant, and it will not be the last. Public health organizations are braced for the possibility that future variants could be more infectious and more easily transmissible. Current methods of monitoring have added to the already enormous strain on healthcare systems worldwide. Challenges these systems face include scarcity of available medical supplies, understaffed healthcare personnel, technical and financial resources, inadequate diagnostic tools, and limited access to clinical testing – especially in developing countries.
Wastewater surveillance could be a powerful tool in helping mitigate this strain. As wastewater surveillance uses pooled samples from the population, it is less expensive than testing individuals. It provides a valuable approach in the toolbox for monitoring COVID-19 in the general population.
Working like a snapshot of population health, wastewater surveillance is a strategic sampling and testing of wastewater. It enables scientists to detect diseases and their prevalence within a community in real-time, and track clusters or hotspots. Critically, it even captures the presence of SARS-CoV-2 shed by people without symptoms. These asymptomatic cases would otherwise be underreported in health surveillance.
In some cities, SARS-CoV-2 has been detected in wastewater samples which were collected earlier than the first reported cases of COVID-19. This demonstrates how, if implemented systematically and regularly, the technique can allow early detection of outbreaks which could potentially become future pandemics. Although wastewater surveillance has been used in the past for different purposes (in the 1940s it was used to track polio outbreaks in the United States), the COVID-19 pandemic underlines the importance of this cost-effective tool for global public health, pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response.
Due to the current high cost of clinical testing to curb COVID-19, there is a need to implement a cost-effective mass surveillance approach for monitoring the disease in populations. The evidence from a vast number of scientific studies suggests that the inclusion of wastewater surveillance in systematic testing strategies at the regional or national level will be a solution to complement the healthcare system.
Last year, the World Health Assembly met in a Special Session, the second-ever since WHO’s creation in 1948, and agreed to launch a process to develop a historic global accord on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response. It established an intergovernmental negotiating body to draft and negotiate this international instrument. Given the lessons learned from the current COVID-19 pandemic on the benefits of wastewater surveillance, this powerful public health tool must be a central consideration among Members of the World Health Organization in the ongoing negotiations on a pandemic treaty.
While there is a growing awareness of the value of wastewater to track and prevent the spread of diseases, let us also not forget that water itself is a valuable resource that is increasingly under threat from climate change and we need to work together to protect and manage water sustainably.
