Alaska health officials point to wastewater sampling as useful disease-tracking tool

A sign, seen connected Wednesday, marks nan location of nan John M. Asplund Wastewater Treatment Facility adjacent Point Woronzof successful Anchorage. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

The Alaska Division of Public Health is hoping to grow wastewater-monitoring programs that person proved useful successful detecting outbreaks of COVID-19 and different respiratory diseases, a study said.

Testing astatine Anchorage’s John M. Asplund Wastewater Treatment Facility, nan municipality’s main wastewater plant, was capable to supply announcement of a spike successful COVID-19 cases successful January 2023, respective days up of patients’ cases that were confirmed by wellness laboratories, said a bulletin recently issued by nan division’s epidemiology section.

The accusation gleaned from testing astatine nan Anchorage works is an illustration of nan measurement wastewater sampling has been used successful aggregate Alaska communities to show organization dispersed of COVID-19 and different contagious diseases for illustration influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, aliases RSV.

Within Alaska, aggregate communities successful summation to Anchorage person been utilizing wastewater sampling for that purpose, and for detecting different diseases arsenic well. Sites see Juneau, Fairbanks and Bethel. The testing is funded successful portion by nan U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Anchorage is nan only Alaska organization that is portion of a national WastewaterSCAN network that can detect additional pathogens, specified arsenic those causing hepatitis and mpox. The others are portion of the CDC’s National Wastewater Surveillance System.

In Bethel, nan Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp. began testing wastewater samples in October 2022 for viruses that origin COVID-19, influenza and RSV, nan epidemiology bulletin said. That monitoring has helped wellness officials clip their influenza vaccinations and distribution of antiviral medications to combat RSV, nan bulletin said. In December, nan Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp., pinch nan thief of nan CDC, started a task to see tuberculosis and norovirus testing successful its wastewater monitoring program, nan bulletin said.

The Division of Public Health is moving to grow wastewater monitoring passim nan authorities arsenic portion of a strategy “to beryllium amended prepared for early pandemics for illustration COVID-19,” nan bulletin said. The section plans to motorboat a workgroup soon pinch wastewater managers, wellness officials, laboratories and different parties, nan bulletin said.

There are immoderate typical Alaska challenges, nan bulletin noted. Many communities deficiency centralized sewer systems, for example. Geographic remoteness besides presents difficult logistics and precocious costs for sampling, proscription to a testing tract and existent testing, nan bulletin said. Another complication is Alaska’s weather, arsenic snowmelt and rainwater tin participate h2o systems being treated, perchance mixing successful pathogens from elsewhere, nan bulletin said.

Though it became much heavy utilized successful nan COVID-19 pandemic, wastewater testing arsenic a strategy for illness monitoring is not new. In nan United States, nan practice dates to nan 1930s, erstwhile scientists began examining wastewater for nan beingness of poliovirus. The earliest documented usage of that type of testing whitethorn person been successful nan mid-1800s, erstwhile expert John Snow detected nan germs that origin cholera successful water at a circumstantial h2o pump in London.

In summation to search illness spread, wastewater sampling could besides beryllium utilized to detect community usage of opioids.