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Sequencing wastewater may be key to getting a grip on the H5N1 bird flu outbreak
- eskathos 2y agoThe danish government has been doing that for a while, with open data available per region: https://en.ssi.dk/surveillance-and-preparedness/surveillance-in-denmark/covid-19/national-surveillance-of-sars-cov-2-in-wastewater 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/international-coorporation/eu-wish https://en.ssi.dk/surveillance-and-preparedness/internationa...
- cholera911 2y ago..and some lucky bastard managed to dig up some cholera bacteria from the sewers in Avedøre: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39085652/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39085652/
- waveBidder 2y agothis is kind of a thing in the States, the program is called Nwss. https://www.cdc.gov/nwss/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/nwss/index.html
- osigurdson 2y agoAren't most jurisdictions doing this now?
- SoftTalker 2y agoSome are, not sure about most. There is a cost, as with anything, so smaller utilities might not be.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- richbell 2y agoOntario's conservative government abruptly shut ours. https://archive.ph/VVaoi https://archive.ph/VVaoi https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-halts-covid-wastewater-testing-1.7280822 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-halts-covid-w...
- osigurdson 2y 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!
- richbell 2y ago> Perhaps their decision makes sense given the cost. What point are you trying to make? 10-15 million is nothing considering how valuable that data is for public health. Public services cost money; nobody argues that we shouldn't have roads because they cost money to maintain.
- waveBidder 2y agohttps://www.cdc.gov/nwss/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/nwss/index.html has most of the public ones
- randogp 2y agoThe 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 https://wastewater-observatory.jrc.ec.europa.eu/#/bulletin
- wigster 2y agowhy not just put the word "genetic/genome" at the front of that headline? *kers.
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- rnweiher 2y ago[dead]
- tonetegeatinst 2y agoPretty sure I heard wastewater can be used to detect sudden spikes of drug usage or sudden outbreaks. Not surprising.
- misja111 2y agoYes, check e.g. the map in this page https://www.euda.europa.eu/publications/html/pods/waste-water-analysis_en https://www.euda.europa.eu/publications/html/pods/waste-wate..., it's pretty cool
- pfdietz 2y agoAlso, 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 2y agoI might be an overachiever here. Finally I’m a 10xer!
- te_chris 2y agoLondon's flows with coke
- worstspotgain 2y agohttps://archive.is/tXN8b https://archive.is/tXN8b
- worstspotgain 2y agoWastewater hits in SF reported back in June: SF Chronicle: https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/h5n1-avian-flu-san-francisco-19489217.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/h5n1-avian-flu-sa... LA Times: https://archive.is/VSjBB https://archive.is/VSjBB
- ethbr1 2y agoPart 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_ 2y agoAlso, it's not so finely-grained that it seems like a privacy problem.
- worstspotgain 2y agoSF 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.
- dredmorbius 2y agoSF has pretty limited lawn irrigation as well. Depending on how the sewerage system is divided, some parts of the city have effectively none.
- worstspotgain 2y ago
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- rsktaker 2y agoMy 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-offers-early-detection-covid-19#:~:text=UCLA%20is%20one%20of%20many,College%2C%20to%20name%20a%20few https://adminvc.ucla.edu/expanded-wastewater-testing-program....
- rogerrogerr 2y ago[flagged]