Investing in Wastewater Detection Helps Protect People from Antimicrobial Resistance and COVID-19

During the COVID-19 pandemic, wastewater testing has become more recognized globally as a useful tool for early detection of outbreaks and burden of disease in a community. U.S. communities have reported that wastewater surveillance data is providing critical information to support their COVID-19 mitigation strategies.

The framework for this approach was developed as part of a study to determine the burden of antimicrobial-resistant threats in wastewater prior to the pandemic. Through funding from CDC’s Antimicrobial Resistance Solutions Initiative in 2018, researchers at the University of South Carolina studied resistant germs in wastewater treatment plants. The findings from this study provided critical, foundational data to establish CDC’s National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS). When the COVID-19 pandemic began, CDC and University of South Carolina researchers were able to quickly build upon ongoing wastewater testing to track COVID-19 trends in communities across the United States.