Sequencing wastewater may be key to getting a grip on the H5N1 bird flu outbreak

https://www.statnews.com/2024/09/27/h5n1-bird-flu-wastewater-surveillance-sequencing/

by ethbr1 • 2 years ago

75 24 2 years ago

statnews.com

tonetegeatinst• 2 years ago

Pretty sure I heard wastewater can be used to detect sudden spikes of drug usage or sudden outbreaks. Not surprising.

te_chris• 2 years ago

London's flows with coke

misja111• 2 years ago

Yes, check e.g. the map in this page https://www.euda.europa.eu/publications/html/pods/waste-wate..., it's pretty cool

pfdietz• 2 years ago

Also, drugs can be used to track wastewater. For example, the quantity of wastewater flowing into a river can be estimated by measuring caffeine in the river's water.

doubled112• 2 years ago

I might be an overachiever here. Finally I’m a 10xer!

worstspotgain4• 2 years ago

https://archive.is/tXN8b

worstspotgain4• 2 years ago

Wastewater hits in SF reported back in June:

SF Chronicle: https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/h5n1-avian-flu-sa...

LA Times: https://archive.is/VSjBB

ethbr1• 2 years ago

Part of the article's suggestion is to better differentiate monitoring points, so as to divide farm-related hits from urban hits.

That said, in cities that have combined storm and sewer system, the latter is a lot more difficult.

But in general, it is a uniquely politically-palatable continuous monitoring solution.

The public doesn't want to think about what happens underneath a toilet or drain, so no one cares if someone is sampling and testing it.

Terr_• 2 years ago

Also, it's not so finely-grained that it seems like a privacy problem.

worstspotgain4• 2 years ago

SF has a combined sewer system, but it has zero farms. One question is whether it was more likely to be a signal from wild birds (into the runoff system) than humans (into the sewer.)

There's very little rain in the summer months, the average for July rounds off to 0.0in. I don't remember if there was any significant rain in May or June, but I'd be surprised if it was more than 1-5% of the total. I guess there's lawn irrigation, though.

rsktaker• 2 years ago

My university recently discovered a covid outbreak at my freshman dorm by testing the wastewater; that was the first I heard about the technique. It's especially effective for this use case: "Traces of SARS-CoV-2 can show up in an infected person’s feces days before any symptoms are detected, and even when a person ultimately shows no symptoms at all." [1]

[1] https://adminvc.ucla.edu/expanded-wastewater-testing-program....

eskathos• 2 years ago

The danish government has been doing that for a while, with open data available per region: https://en.ssi.dk/surveillance-and-preparedness/surveillance...

They also lead the EU wide project to track infections across the largest cities across europe: https://en.ssi.dk/surveillance-and-preparedness/internationa...

cholera911• 2 years ago

..and some lucky bastard managed to dig up some cholera bacteria from the sewers in Avedøre: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39085652/

waveBidder2• 2 years ago

this is kind of a thing in the States, the program is called Nwss. https://www.cdc.gov/nwss/index.html

osigurdson2• 2 years ago

Aren't most jurisdictions doing this now?

SoftTalker• 2 years ago

Some are, not sure about most. There is a cost, as with anything, so smaller utilities might not be.

richbell2• 2 years ago

Ontario's conservative government abruptly shut ours.

https://archive.ph/VVaoi

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-halts-covid-w...

osigurdson2• 2 years ago

> which has cost $10- to $15-million a year since it was launched in 2020

Great link. Perhaps their decision makes sense given the cost. I had no idea that people were running around with fishing rods and tampons to do this. That is hilarious!

waveBidder2• 2 years ago

https://www.cdc.gov/nwss/index.html has most of the public ones

randogp• 2 years ago

The EU publishes monthly bulletins around DNA surveillance programs. "The bulletin summarise the reported results and findings from European national wastewater surveillance programmes. It also informs about the local surveillance projects and non-EU countries participating as observers" https://wastewater-observatory.jrc.ec.europa.eu/#/bulletin

wigster• 2 years ago

why not just put the word "genetic/genome" at the front of that headline?

*kers.

Sequencing wastewater may be key to getting a grip on the H5N1 bird flu outbreak

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