New report calls for unified, national wastewater surveillance system

Wastewater surveillance provided valuable public health information during the Covid-19 pandemic and merits “further development and continued investment,” according to a new report released this week (Source: “A New Report Outlines a Vision for National Wastewater Surveillance,” New York Times, Jan. 19).

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine report found that, although the pandemic spurred the rapid expansion of wastewater surveillance, the current system sprung up in an ad hoc way, fueled by volunteerism and emergency pandemic-related funding. It is also concentrated in major metropolitan areas, leaving many communities behind.

“The current system is not fully equitable,” Dr. Guy Palmer, a professor of pathology and infectious diseases at Washington State University and chair of the committee that wrote the report, said at a webinar on Thursday.

The challenge now, he said, was to move from this kind of grass roots system to a more standardized, “representative” national system.

The report outlined what such a system might look like, noting that it should be able to track a variety of potential threats, which could include future coronavirus variants, flu viruses, antibiotic resistant bacteria and entirely new pathogens.