Canadian Wastewater Surveillance Expands to Emerging Public Health Threats: Tam

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OTTAWA — Canada’s chief public health officer says plans are underway to filter Canadian sewage to test and measure new health threats like monkey pox and polio.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, sewage detection has become a key way to track the spread of the virus.

Dr Theresa Tam says experts at the National Microbiology Laboratory have now discovered a promising approach to detecting monkeypox in sewage and will use the infrastructure developed during the pandemic to search for it.

How this surveillance fits into the Public Health Agency of Canada’s surveillance efforts on monkeypox is not yet clear.

The Public Health Agency of Canada also intends to begin polio testing as soon as possible after US health officials say they found the polio virus in sewage. of New York City.

Tam says sewage detection is still imperfect, but there’s a lot of innovation going on, and the public health agency is researching the best method to help standardize the process in Canada.

This report from The Canadian Press was first published on August 12, 2022.

— With files from the Associated Press

Laura Osman, The Canadian Press

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