Wastewater surveillance is an effective tool for monitoring the spread of infectious diseases such as COVID-19. In August 2021, a citywide…
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Wastewater & Environmental Surveillance in Low-Resource Settings
Developed in partnership with the Gates Foundation, this Collection showcases the emerging role of wastewater and environmental surveillance (WES) techniques in strengthening infectious disease surveillance, with a focus on low-resource settings.
An invaluable resource in the polio eradication initiative and, more recently, during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, WES can provide early warning of pathogen emergence and spread, helping public health authorities implement appropriate interventions to safeguard public health.
Led by Supriya Kumar (Gates Foundation, USA) and Kerrigan McCarthy (National Institute for Communicable Diseases, South Africa), this Collection features research spanning methods and tools for WES of pathogens, modeling and frameworks for WES, implementation of WES across low-middle- income countries and low-resource settings, as well as standards for WES data collection and sharing.
Collectively, these studies highlight both the opportunities and challenges of using wastewater and environmental surveillance to support public health decision-making across diverse settings.
Image Credit: Person photographed is Md Reyaj Patwary from icddr,b, Bangladesh by Supriya Kumar. CC BY 2.0
PLOS Global Public Health
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PLOS Global Public Health Localized wastewater surveillance showed correlation but no early warning during Bengaluru’s Omicron wave
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PLOS Global Public Health Respiratory virus infection dynamics and genomic surveillance to detect seasonal influenza subtypes in wastewater: A longitudinal study in Bengaluru, India
Recent global pandemics have been caused by respiratory viruses in humans and animals with zoonotic spillover potential. Respiratory…
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PLOS Global Public Health Wastewater-integrated pathogen surveillance dashboards enable real-time, transparent, and interpretable public health risk assessment and dissemination
Timely pathogen surveillance and reporting is essential for effective public health guidance. Web dashboards have become a key tool for…
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PLOS Global Public Health Cost-effectiveness of wastewater-based environmental surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 in Blantyre, Malawi and Kathmandu, Nepal: A model-based study
Wastewater-based environmental surveillance (ES) has been demonstrated to provide an early warning signal to predict variant-driven waves…
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PLOS Global Public Health Characterization of environmental and clinical surveillance inputs to support prospective integrated modeling of the polio endgame
National, regional, and global poliovirus surveillance needs continue to expand and evolve. The 1988 global resolution to eradicate polio…
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PLOS Global Public Health Wastewater metagenomics in Africa: Opportunities and challenges
The advent of metagenomics has dramatically expanded our understanding of microbial communities, particularly through the study of…
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
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PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases Diversity of Salmonella enterica isolates from urban river and sewage water in Blantyre, Malawi
Background: Salmonella enterica encompasses over 2,600 serovars, including several commonly associated with severe infection in humans.…
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PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases Determining genotype and antimicrobial resistance of Salmonella Typhi in environmental samples by amplicon sequencing
Background: Estimates of the burden of typhoid fever due to Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi (S. Typhi) rely on data from clinical…
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PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases Wastewater surveillance for Salmonella Typhi and its association with seroincidence of enteric fever in Vellore, India
Background: Blood culture-based surveillance for typhoid fever has limited sensitivity, and operational challenges are encountered in…
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PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases Environmental surveillance for Salmonella Typhi in rivers and wastewater from an informal sewage network in Blantyre, Malawi
Environmental surveillance for Salmonella Typhi may provide information on the community-level dynamics of typhoid fever in resource poor…
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PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases Soil surveillance for monitoring soil-transmitted helminths: Method development and field testing in three countries
Background: One-fifth of the global population is infected with soil-transmitted helminths (STH). Mass drug administration (MDA) with…
PLOS Computational Biology
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PLOS Computational Biology Optimal sampling frequency and site selection for wastewater and environmental surveillance of infectious pathogens: A value of information assessment
Wastewater and environmental surveillance (WES) is a promising method of detecting infectious diseases in human and animal populations and…
PLOS Water
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PLOS Water Expanding access to wastewater surveillance beyond sewered networks: Effectiveness of active and passive sampling of waste effluent streams in Côte d’Ivoire
In response to COVID-19, wastewater surveillance rapidly expanded in high-income sewered settings. However, little is known about sampling…
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PLOS Water Environmental surveillance of soil-transmitted helminths and other enteric pathogens in settings without networked wastewater infrastructure
Soil-transmitted helminths (STH) are one of the most prevalent enteric infections world-wide. To control STH-related morbidity, the World…
PLOS ONE
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PLOS ONE Evaluation of Moore and grab sampling method for Salmonella Typhi detection in environmental samples in Ghana
Background: Typhoid fever causes substantial mortality and morbidity in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) as a result of inadequate…
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PLOS ONE Wastewater surveillance overcomes socio-economic limitations of laboratory-based surveillance when monitoring disease transmission: The South African experience during the COVID-19 pandemic
Wastewater and environmental surveillance has been promoted as a communicable disease surveillance tool because it overcomes inherent…