Strengthening Policy Relevance of Wastewater-Based Surveillance for Antimicrobial Resistance

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major public health threat, causing 5 million deaths in 2019. Healthcare-based surveillance (HBS) is inadequate due to underreporting and lack of community-level representation. Researchers are using wastewater-based surveillance (WBS) to complement HBS, providing comprehensive AMR prevalence information. However, WBS’s surveillance targets and data differ from HBS, raising uncertainty about their utility and policy relevance.