The Crucial Role of Laboratory Medicine in Addressing Future Public Health Infectious Threats: Insights Gained from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Diagnostics, Год журнала: 2025, Номер 15(3), С. 323 - 323

Опубликована: Янв. 30, 2025

Laboratory testing has played a pivotal role throughout the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, exemplifying importance of in vitro diagnostics addressing public health threats posed by outbreaks infectious diseases. This article aims to present key insights from our expertise, derived evidence gathered during COVID-19 inform strategies for managing future challenges. Current scientific underscores that patient sample not only allows diagnose an acute severe respiratory syndrome 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, but also supports outbreak prediction, improved control measures, anticipation pressure on healthcare system, mitigation adverse clinical outcomes, and early detection emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants. Additionally, wastewater monitoring emerged as powerful tool forecasting burden, including both prevalence severity. Collectively, these findings underscore value diagnostic surveillance guiding planning optimizing resource allocation offering valid framework be applied threats, especially any potential “Disease X” may emerge future.

Язык: Английский

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Monitoring Antibiotic Resistance in Wastewater: Findings from Three Treatment Plants in Sicily, Italy

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Год журнала: 2025, Номер 22(3), С. 351 - 351

Опубликована: Фев. 27, 2025

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a global public health threat. Wastewater analysis provides valuable insights into antimicrobial genes (ARGs), identifying sources and trends evaluating AMR control measures. Between February 2022 March 2023, pre-treatment urban wastewater samples were collected weekly from treatment plants in Pantano D'Arci, Siracusa, Giarre (Sicily, Italy). Monthly composite DNA extracts prepared by combining subsamples each site, yielding 42 samples-14 plant. Real-time PCR targeted specific ARGs, including blaSHV, erm(A), erm(B), blaOXA, blaNDM, blaVIM, blaTEM, blaCTX-M. The preliminary findings revealed that blaERM-B, blaCTX-M present all samples, with erm(B) (median value: 8.51; range: 1.67-30.93), blaSHV (0.78; 0.00-6.36), blaTEM (0.72; 0.34-4.30) showing the highest relative abundance. These results underscore importance of integrating ARG data broader research to understand persistence proliferation mechanisms ARGs environments. Future studies should employ metagenomic analyses profile resistomes urban, hospital, agricultural, farm wastewater. Comparing these profiles will help identify contamination pathways inform development surveillance programs. Monitoring shifts abundance could signal cross-sectoral contamination, enabling more effective strategies.

Язык: Английский

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Innovative approaches to monitor illicit drug use and novel psychoactive substances in Tunisia using wastewater-based epidemiology

Annales de Toxicologie Analytique, Год журнала: 2025, Номер unknown

Опубликована: Март 1, 2025

Язык: Английский

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The Cutting Edge of Surveillance: Exploring High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry in Wastewater-based Epidemiology for Monitoring Forensic Samples

Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis, Год журнала: 2025, Номер 260, С. 116821 - 116821

Опубликована: Март 11, 2025

Язык: Английский

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Using wastewater analysis to assess the health status of two distinct populations in China

Water Research X, Год журнала: 2025, Номер unknown, С. 100335 - 100335

Опубликована: Март 1, 2025

Язык: Английский

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Defining alarm thresholds for the load of pathogenic viruses in wastewater for decision making: An application to three French cities

International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health, Год журнала: 2025, Номер 266, С. 114563 - 114563

Опубликована: Март 15, 2025

Язык: Английский

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Australian and New Zealand Laboratory Experience and Proposed Future Direction of Wastewater Pathogen Genomic Surveillance

Environments, Год журнала: 2025, Номер 12(4), С. 114 - 114

Опубликована: Апрель 8, 2025

Wastewater pathogen surveillance was rapidly implemented across Australia and New Zealand as a public health tool during the COVID-19 pandemic. To assess method consistency identify opportunities for harmonization, we surveyed all Australian Laboratories conducting government-funded wastewater surveillance. The survey demonstrated alignment of some choices, particularly municipal treatment plant (WWTP) sampling use electromagnetic membrane filtration followed by RT-qPCR. However, key differences were observed in sample volumes; nucleic acid purification methods; validation approaches; sequencing, analysis, reporting methods SARS-CoV-2 lineages. A lack consensus on best-practice evident, highlighting need interlaboratory data exchanges to support comparability. Following pandemic period, several jurisdictional programs discontinued despite mounting international evidence utility wastewater-based epidemiology range pathogens. Subsequently, nationally funded program announced Australia, necessitating re-establishment laboratory capacity jurisdictions expansion target pathogens other centers. results this are intended inform enhancement regional provide foundation knowledge sharing approach harmonization.

Язык: Английский

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Antipyretic Surveillance in Wastewater: A Tool for Assessing Public Health and Tracking Ongoing “Disease X”

Environmental Science & Technology Letters, Год журнала: 2025, Номер unknown

Опубликована: Май 19, 2025

Язык: Английский

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Integrated environmental surveillance: the role of wastewater, air, and surface microbiomes in global health security

Water Emerging Contaminants & Nanoplastics, Год журнала: 2025, Номер 4(2)

Опубликована: Май 26, 2025

In recent years, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic, wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has emerged as an effective tool for early detection of disease outbreaks. This manuscript presents a novel perspective on WBE by highlighting sewage predictive instrument, capable providing near-real-time, community-level pathogen surveillance and anticipating mitigating future pandemics even before first clinical symptoms are detected. approach enables cost-effective, non-invasive, population-wide monitoring infectious diseases’ emergence, evolution, decline. By identifying pathogens in human waste (e.g., viruses bacteria), delivers real-time insights into infection trends, encompassing data from asymptomatic pre-symptomatic populations, enabling timely interventions public health authorities. Among key advantages its capacity to encompass large pinpoint transmission hotspots, facilitate resource allocation containment efforts. The efficacy predicting already been validated during potential critical component pandemic response preparedness. However, this also challenges such sample variability, environmental factors, infrastructure limitations. Through comprehensive review state-of-art available topic, including almost 300 published papers, present emphasizes expected impact integrating global frameworks discusses applications emerging diseases, aiming provide multidimensional overview integration with other tools.

Язык: Английский

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Analyzing community wastewater in sub-sewersheds for the small-scale detection of SARS-CoV-2 variants in a German metropolitan area

The Science of The Total Environment, Год журнала: 2023, Номер 898, С. 165458 - 165458

Опубликована: Июль 14, 2023

Wastewater surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 proved useful, including for identifying the local appearance newly identified virus variants. Previous studies focused on wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) with sewersheds several hundred thousand people or at single building level, representing only a small number people. Both approaches may prove inadequate small-scale intra-urban inferences early detection emerging novel Our study aims (i) to analyze nucleotide variants (SNVs) in sub-sewersheds and WWTP using whole genome sequencing order (ii) investigate potential known concern (VOC) within metropolitan system. We selected three sub-sewershed sampling sites, based estimated population- built environment-related indicators, inlet receiving Ruhr region, Germany. Untreated was sampled weekly between October December 2021, total 22 samples collected. RNA analyzed by RT-qPCR sequencing. For all samples, sequences were obtained, while 13 positive RT-qPCR. multiple specific SNVs WWTP. Identified reflected dominance VOC Delta time sampling. Interestingly, we could identify an Omicron-specific SNV one sub-sewershed. A concurrent same detected Omicron week later. observations suggest that approach particularly useful description spatially confined existing circulating populations. Future applying strategies taking into account features system will be temporal spatial variance more detail.

Язык: Английский

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