Article Link Abstract: Global interconnectedness and rapid urbanization intensify the spread of infectious diseases, underscoring the critical need for effective and scalable surveillance. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has proven to be a practical and cost-effective approach for monitoring community-level pathogen prevalence, such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Despite WBE's success in municipal settings, its application to aircraft was

Article Link Abstract: Genetic testing of community wastewater (wastewater surveillance) is a valuable tool for following trends in the abundance of SARS-CoV-2 and other infectious disease pathogens over time. Wastewater surveillance is increasingly important in the absence of corresponding epidemiological data, particularly for infectious diseases with limited timely data on clinical case incidences. Due to the inherent noise in wastewater data, a single sample is not suffic

This application note outlines a scalable and automation-friendly workflow for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) surveillance from wastewater, utilizing Ceres' Nanotrap® Microbiome A Particles for viral enrichment, New England Biolabs' Monarch® Mag Viral DNA/RNA Extraction Kit with DNase treatment to reduce gDNA contamination, and NEBNext® targeted sequencing for high genome coverage and accurate strain identification. ​ The workflow addresses challenges of low viral loads an

Urine has traditionally been overlooked in viral diagnostics, with most research focusing on respiratory and blood samples. Advances in molecular testing and metagenomic sequencing have revealed that urine contains a diverse array of viral targets, including both eukaryotic viruses and bacteriophages. Despite these findings, current diagnostic methods, such as molecular assays and culture-based techniques, remain limited by low viral titers, inhibitory matrix components, and

Mass gatherings increase the risk of infectious disease transmission, particularly when healthcare systems are overstretched and underfunded. Wastewater and environmental surveillance (WES) offer a real-time, non-invasive method for monitoring pathogen circulation at the population level. During Uganda’s 2025 Martyrs’ Day pilgrimage, which drew over three million people, the Ministry of Health used WES to identify and respond to health threats.