Establishing a European wastewater pathogen monitoring network employing aviation samples: a proof of concept.

Pathogens know no borders, and the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the urgent need for comparable, globally accessible pathogen data. This paper proposes a European wastewater pathogen monitoring network using aircraft and airport samples as a proof of concept for an effective cross-national surveillance system. The study emphasizes the importance of genomic data collection from strategic sites to produce high-value data for disease surveillance and epidemiological analysis.

An analysis of 45 large-scale wastewater sites in England to estimate SARS-CoV-2 community prevalence.

Accurate surveillance of the COVID-19 pandemic can be weakened by under-reporting of cases, particularly due to asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic infections, resulting in bias. Quantification of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater can be used to infer infection prevalence, but uncertainty in sensitivity and considerable variability has meant that accurate measurement remains elusive. Here, we use data from 45 sewage sites in England, covering 31% of the population, and estimate SARS-CoV-2 prevalence to within 1.