CDC turns to poop surveillance for future COVID monitoring

Enlarge / Aeration System, Hill Canyon Wastewater Treatment Plant, Camarillo, Ventura County, California. (credit: Getty | Universal Images Group)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday announced it is now publicly logging levels of SARS-CoV-2 found in sewage from around the country. The announcement elevates a growing system for wastewater surveillance that the CDC says will eventually be aimed at other infectious diseases.

The system began as a grassroots research effort in 2020 but has grown to a network of more than 400 wastewater sampling sites nationwide, representing the feces of approximately 53 million Americans. The CDC is now working with 37 states, four cities, and two territories to add more wastewater sampling sites. The health agency expects to have an additional 250 sites online in the coming weeks and more after that in the coming months.

In a press briefing Friday, Dr. Amy Kirby, the CDC's program lead for the National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS), called the sampling a critical early warning system for COVID-19 surges and variants, as well as "a new frontier of infectious disease surveillance in the US."

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