What is Wastewater Surveillance?
Wastewater surveillance is a process of monitoring and analyzing the water that goes down drains and toilets from homes, businesses and industries. It involves examining the wastewater to gather information about substances, particles or anything that could potentially make people sick. This method helps public health agencies spot the presence and activity of disease in a community or region.
How Does It Work?
When people are infected with certain infectious agents they can shed it in their feces, even if they don’t have symptoms. The virus can then be found in wastewater through laboratory testing. By regularly testing and reviewing results from wastewater, experts can identify areas or communities with higher levels of some infectious agents, even before cases are reported by health care providers. The results from wastewater testing are reviewed over time and compared to other disease indicators, such as individual testing and hospitalization rates. All this information can help public health officials allocate resources to take necessary actions, like implementing targeted testing or reinforcing preventive measures.
What is Being Done in South Carolina?
South Carolina is conducting wastewater testing for the virus that causes COVID-19 and the virus that causes mpox (formerly known as monkeypox). The program currently tests samples from several wastewater utilities. Testing is performed by the South Carolina Public Health Lab and a lab contracted through the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC). Results for South Carolina can be found here: CDC COVID Data Tracker: Wastewater Surveillance or at CDC U.S. Mpox Wastewater Data.
How is South Carolina Information Being Used?
South Carolina reviews trends in wastewater data and shares the data with the CDC to assist in tracking COVID-19 and mpox levels across the country.
Future direction:
- Expand wastewater surveillance across South Carolina to better understand COVID-19 and mpox in our state.
- Make data available to the public, our partner utilities and other stakeholders.
- Consider expanding the use of WWS to other public health issues.
Frequently Asked Questions
How are water samples collected?
Water samples are collected at the wastewater utility by machine or by hand. Samples are stored, packaged, and shipped to the laboratory for testing. The laboratory analyzes the sample and provides the concentration of certain infectious agents like SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
What are the advantages of wastewater surveillance?
Wastewater surveillance may detect selected infectious agents circulating in the community before cases are reported by health care providers and doesn’t rely on people going to a health care setting to get a test. Wastewater surveillance is anonymous as the sample represents a community and cannot be used to trace back to individual people.
For more information, please visit the CDC's National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS).