New York State plans to expand wastewater surveillance to combat infectious diseases
A health worker in Jammu, India, holds a vial of the polio vaccine. Credit: Sipa USA via AP/Bikas Bhagat
The state will invest nearly $22 million over the next three years to expand its wastewater surveillance program to combat the spread of infectious diseases such as influenza, hepatitis A and polio, state Health Department officials said Monday.
The $21.6 million investment includes $5 million in state funding annually through 2025, along with a $6.6 million grant from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, officials said.
The funding boost will allow the state to increase the number of participating sewersheds from 125 to more than 215, while increasing the program's reach to about 16 million New Yorkers, representing 81% of the population served by public sewer systems, according to the state Health Department.
The expansion will also enable the program to reach more than 1 million Long Islanders, a 14% increase, while adding 10 new treatment plants — five each in Nassau and Suffolk counties — to the state’s network, Health officials said. There are now 18 treatment plants on Long Island participating in the program.
“Providing confidential, science-based and community-level information, wastewater monitoring is advancing our tracking of trends for COVID-19 and has been invaluable in identifying polio in communities,” said acting Health Commissioner James McDonald. “These resources directly expand our wastewater monitoring network — and its reach — giving our team additional proactive capabilities to protect and promote the health of New Yorkers against more health threats.”
Wastewater surveillance is a process where flushed sewage samples are collected from treatment plants and sent to laboratories for testing, providing early detection for viruses that may be circulating through a community.
After a case of polio was identified in Rockland County last July, Health officials utilized the surveillance system to assess communities for signs of the deadly disease. Last September, the polio virus was detected in wastewater samples taken from North Hempstead, the first trace of the once-eradicated disease in Nassau, state and local officials said.
The Health Department plans to utilize the new funding to conduct pilot studies of additional pathogens such as influenza A, RSV, hepatitis A, norovirus and antimicrobial-resistant genes in Erie, Onondaga, Jefferson and Westchester counties, officials said.
The surveillance program, established in 2021 to support the state's COVID-19 pandemic response, is conducted with the state Department of Environmental Conservation and several local colleges, including Stony Brook University.
"Given that mass public testing for COVID in New York largely ended in 2022 with the advent of home testing, and given the pandemic has become endemic, wastewater surveillance has become the primary tool for understanding community infection rates," Stony Brook University marine sciences professor Christopher Gobler said in a statement. "In addition, it is now an incredibly useful tool for tracking outbreaks of other communicable diseases like the polio virus outbreak in New York in 2022."
The university first began testing for COVID in wastewater in April 2020 and now conducts tests at 10 treatment plants across Long Island, with data reported to the state and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Gobler, who also serves as director of the state Center for Clean Water Technology at Stony Brook.
Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.
'I'm going to try to avoid it' A trip to the emergency room in a Long Island hospital now averages nearly 4 hours, data shows. NewsdayTV's Virginia Huie reports.
'I'm going to try to avoid it' A trip to the emergency room in a Long Island hospital now averages nearly 4 hours, data shows. NewsdayTV's Virginia Huie reports.
