Wastewater monitoring as a pandemic preparedness tool / Consortium: WastPan

Infectious disease epidemics cause morbidity, death and economic loss in human communities. Epidemics can occur quickly or slowly. Pathogenic microbes, such as the new coronavirus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic, can spread rapidly. Multidrug-resistant bacteria, on the other hand, cause a so-called silent pandemic with a serious consequence: the depletion of effective drugs. WastPan develops science-based guidelines and preparedness tools for environmental monitoring of pathogen microbes and antibiotic resistance utilizing the wastewater network. We study a wide range of wastewater samples, the microbes they contain, and the metagenomics to determine the pathogens circulating and excreted into the wastewater. As a result, we will produce science-based recommendations and guidelines for wastewater-based surveillance aimed at detecting alert signs of communicable diseases in advance at different locations and at the national level to control epidemics.