Advancing wastewater & environmental surveillance for public health impact in Asia

This project aims to build on emerging lessons from existing regional network and partnerships (including EU-led programmes such as EU-WISH, the Wastewater Surveillance for Africa Initiative, and GLOWACON) to further develop regional wastewater surveillance guidance for Asia, and to support countries in the institutionalisation of wastewater surveillance systems that are appropriate, cost-efficient and have public health impact. The project will strengthen wastewater surveillance against the mpox outbreak, pathogen genomics capacities, data analytics, the network to support outbreak detection, and reinforce wastewater surveillance as a tool for health crisis management, as well as for pandemic preparedness against cross-border health threats. The project activities will include (a) co-developing a tailored multi-pathogen WES assay (including mpox) with World Health Organisation via the Preferred Product Characteristics mechanism, (b) Validating multi-pathogen WES assay for use in resource limited settings, (c) formalising agreement(s) with manufacturers on low-cost procurement models, (d) strengthening WES technical and innovation capacity including for mpox detection through Asia Pathogen Genomics Initiative Academy (in collaboration with the European Water Academy & GLOWACON) (e) generation of evidence and frameworks for national WES integration and public health impact through practical toolkit for national strategic planning, including guidance framework on legal and ethical dimensions of WES, and (f) cross-country exchange of knowledge and mapping and analysis of existing WES databases and dashboards in Asia.