Committee on Community Wastewater-based Infectious Disease Surveillance – författare

The COVID-19 pandemic sparked widespread implementation of wastewater surveillance in communities across the United States to help track the spread of the disease. In contrast to clinical laboratory testing that tracks individual cases of infection, wastewater surveillance provides a way to measure the amount of DNA from pathogens coming from homes, businesses, and other institutions that share a sewer system. To help coordinate and centralize early efforts, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched the National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS) in September 2020, with pilot sites in eight states. As of April 2024, the NWSS is receiving data from more than 1,300 active sampling sites, covering a population of 130 million individuals.A Phase 1 report released in early 2023 examined the usefulness of the NWSS during the COVID-19 pandemic, described the potential value of a robust national wastewater surveillance system beyond COVID-19, and provided recommendations to increase the public health impact of such a system. This Phase 2 report details the technical constraints and opportunities to improve wastewater surveillance for the prevention and control of infectious diseases in the U.S. It recommends improvements in the consistency and quality of national wastewater sampling, testing, and data analysis, and identifies research and technology development needs for a national wastewater surveillance system that can serve ongoing and changing public health needs in the United States.

The COVID-19 pandemic spurred a rapid expansion of wastewater-based infectious disease surveillance systems to monitor and anticipate disease trends in communities.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched the National Wastewater Surveillance System in September 2020 to help coordinate and build upon those efforts. Produced at the request of CDC, this report reviews the usefulness of community-level wastewater surveillance during the pandemic and assesses its potential value for control and prevention of infectious diseases beyond COVID-19.Wastewater-based Disease Surveillance for Public Health Action concludes that wastewater surveillance is and will continue to be a valuable component of infectious disease management. This report presents a vision for a national wastewater surveillance system that would track multiple pathogens simultaneously and pivot quickly to detect emerging pathogens, and it offers recommendations to ensure that the system is flexible, equitable, and economically sustainable for informing public health actions. The report also recommends approaches to address ethical and privacy concerns and develop a more representative wastewater surveillance system. Predictable and sustained federal funding as well as ongoing coordination and collaboration among many partners will be critical to the effectiveness of efforts moving forward.