A new ²ÝÁñÊÓƵ-IAS Policy Brief offers recommendations for scaling up wastewater surveillance as a cost-effective strategy for early detection and monitoring of infectious diseases. Focusing on low- and middle-income countries, it identifies the main challenges and opportunities for integrating wastewater surveillance systems into national and regional disease surveillance frameworks. The brief, , is authored by Geetha Mohan, Sadhana Shrestha, Saroj Kumar Chapagain, Carolyn Payus, and Kensuke Fukushi.
Highlights
Public health surveillance is critical in combatting infectious diseases such as COVID-19. Environmental surveillance can complement monitoring of individual human infections and provide unique benefits. In particular, monitoring of wastewater is a valuable tool for obtaining information on disease outbreaks at the community scale, including asymptomatic and test-reluctant individuals, at a low cost. It should be included in national testing strategies and tracing programmes to gain a better understanding of the prevalence and evolution of diseases in communities and strengthen early detection of future outbreaks.
Recommendations:
- Implement wastewater-based tools and strengthen technical capabilities and cost-effective mechanisms to integrate existing clinical testing with wastewater surveillance systems.
- Improve governance frameworks to establish and strengthen wastewater surveillance systems.
- Strengthen public¨Cprivate coordination to enhance data sharing and interpretation for efficient, supportable, and stable wastewater surveillance while maintaining ethical standards.
