Wastewater surveillance for bacterial targets: current challenges and future goals

Author:

Philo Sarah E.1ORCID,De León Kara B.2ORCID,Noble Rachel T.3,Zhou Nicolette A.4ORCID,Alghafri Rashed5,Bar-Or Itay6,Darling Amanda7,D'Souza Nishita8,Hachimi Oumaima9,Kaya Devrim10,Kim Sooyeol11,Gaardbo Kuhn Katrin12,Layton Blythe A.13,Mansfeldt Cresten14,Oceguera Bethany1,Radniecki Tyler S.9,Ram Jeffrey L.15,Saunders Lauren P.16,Shrestha Abhilasha17,Stadler Lauren B.18ORCID,Steele Joshua A.19ORCID,Stevenson Bradley S.20,Vogel Jason R.21,Bibby Kyle1ORCID,Boehm Alexandria B.22ORCID,Halden Rolf U.23ORCID,Delgado Vela Jeseth2425ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, USA

2. School of Biological Sciences, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USA

3. Department of Earth, Marine, and Environmental Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Institute of Marine Sciences, Morehead City, North Carolina, USA

4. Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

5. International Center for Forensic Sciences, Dubai Police, Dubai, UAE

6. Israel Ministry of Health, Jerusalem, Israel

7. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA

8. Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA

9. School of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA

10. School of Public Health, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, USA

11. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA

12. Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA

13. Clean Water Services, Hillsboro, Oregon, USA

14. Environmental Engineering Program, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA

15. Department of Physiology, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, Michigan, USA

16. Ceres Nanosciences, Manassas, Virginia, USA

17. Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Division, University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health, Chicago, Illinois, USA

18. Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA

19. Department of Microbiology, Southern California Coastal Research Project, Costa Mesa, California, USA

20. Earth and Planetary Science, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA

21. School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USA

22. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA

23. School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA

24. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA

25. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Howard University, Washington, District of Columbia, USA

Abstract

ABSTRACT Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) expanded rapidly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the public health emergency has ended, researchers and practitioners are looking to shift the focus of existing wastewater surveillance programs to other targets, including bacteria. Bacterial targets may pose some unique challenges for WBE applications. To explore the current state of the field, the National Science Foundation-funded Research Coordination Network (RCN) on Wastewater Based Epidemiology for SARS-CoV-2 and Emerging Public Health Threats held a workshop in April 2023 to discuss the challenges and needs for wastewater bacterial surveillance. The targets and methods used in existing programs were diverse, with twelve different targets and nine different methods listed. Discussions during the workshop highlighted the challenges in adapting existing programs and identified research gaps in four key areas: choosing new targets, relating bacterial wastewater data to human disease incidence and prevalence, developing methods, and normalizing results. To help with these challenges and research gaps, the authors identified steps the larger community can take to improve bacteria wastewater surveillance. This includes developing data reporting standards and method optimization and validation for bacterial programs. Additionally, more work is needed to understand shedding patterns for potential bacterial targets to better relate wastewater data to human infections. Wastewater surveillance for bacteria can help provide insight into the underlying prevalence in communities, but much work is needed to establish these methods. IMPORTANCE Wastewater surveillance was a useful tool to elucidate the burden and spread of SARS-CoV-2 during the pandemic. Public health officials and researchers are interested in expanding these surveillance programs to include bacterial targets, but many questions remain. The NSF-funded Research Coordination Network for Wastewater Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 and Emerging Public Health Threats held a workshop to identify barriers and research gaps to implementing bacterial wastewater surveillance programs.

Funder

National Science Foundation

Publisher

American Society for Microbiology

Subject

Ecology,Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology,Food Science,Biotechnology

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