Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, wastewater surveillance and analysis became a key tool in monitoring and measuring the amount of virus in communities. A 2021 paper co-authored by Hrudey and six other researchers recommended that wastewater surveillance programs for COVID-19 follow a list of 17 guidelines presented by the World Health Organization for ethical public health surveillance. Sometimes the virus can be detected in human wastewater samples before someone displays symptoms of the disease. Nora Dannah is a post-doctoral researcher who works at the Gilbride Lab for wastewater surveillance at Toronto Metropolitan University. Ghaeli agrees that a more definitive ethical groundwork needs to be laid out for how wastewater surveillance is used — and sooner rather than later.

Source: CBC News May 29, 2022 11:03 UTC