WC136 MayJune 2024 - Magazine - Page 34
PERSPECTIVE
During the OMICRON wave, when clinical testing
capacity was overwhelmed, WBS remained the sole
source of community infection trend data.
Beneath the surface
The hidden power of wastewater surveillance.
BY TALIA GLICKMAN
W
Talia Glickman
is the wastewater-based
surveillance program manager at
Canadian Water Network.
34
WATER C AN ADA • M AY/JUNE 2024
of sites. By 2022, 152 municipalities or locations across
Canada were being monitored by federal or provincially
funded programs.
Despite this rapid progress, many questions about
WBS and its methodologies remained. These uncertainties ranged from long-term sustainability linked to
provincial mandates and funding to understanding the
value of this data for end users, including public health
decision-makers and the general public. To foster ongoing discussions about the significance and utilization of
wastewater surveillance data, CWN and the National
Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCCID)
established a peer-learning program.
About the peer learning program
The peer learning program, led by CWN and NCCID,
engages public health perspectives on challenges,
opportunities, and potential solutions. Its primary goal
is to build knowledge and resources for the effective
interpretation and communication of WBS data
across Canada. Financial support for the program was
provided by PHAC and Indigenous Services Canada.
The program’s inaugural phase commenced in April
2023 and concluded in March 2024. During this
period, it actively involved 28 public health practitioners from five provinces. These practitioners serve
diverse communities, including both urban centers and
Indigenous populations. Their responsibilities span a
wide range, and their collective experience encompasses
WBS for COVID-19 and other pathogens. Among the
participants were medical officers of health, environmental health officers, epidemiologists, and other
relevant experts.
The heart of the CWN-NCCID WBS program lies
in its monthly virtual meetings. These sessions facil-
WAT E R C A N A D A . N E T
Getty Images
ASTEWATER-BASED SURVEILLANCE (WBS) has been around since
the 1940s, when it was initially used to
track polio outbreaks. However, it was
during the early days of the COVID-19
pandemic that WBS emerged more prominently as
an evidence-based, cost-effective, and robust detection method for infectious diseases at all stages.
Critical to the success of these efforts were novel
partnerships amongst researchers, municipalities, public health, private labs, and Indigenous communities.
Canadian Water Network (CWN) was instrumental
in assisting with the initial ‘all hands on deck’ coordination amongst the various parties in Ontario with the
creation of the COVID-19 Wastewater Coalition. Another key aspect of this rapid response to the pandemic
was the unprecedented open knowledge and data
sharing between researchers, and coordination across
jurisdictional boundaries and systems.
In the fall of 2020, the Public Health Agency of
Canada (PHAC) launched wastewater monitoring for
COVID-19 in collaboration with Statistics Canada
through the Canadian Wastewater Survey. Additionally, PHAC established a pan-Canadian network for
wastewater surveillance in collaboration with all levels
of government and academia. In addition to this,
provinces and territories funded their own network
