Next week, NYC Health + Hospitals will expand its wastewater surveillance program to test for polio and monkeypox, alongside COVID-19 and flu,, the New York City-based system said Aug. 15.
Three more notes:
1. The health system is expanding the biosurveillance program to all of its 11 hospitals after the program successfully predicted changes in COVID-19 and flu rates at its Elmhurst hospital in the spring and summer.
"Wastewater surveillance is a clever and novel way of getting valuable information about what's coming," said Joseph Masci, MD, chair of the health system's global health institute. "Wastewater data can give clinicians a 10- to- 14-day head start on what we are seeing in clinical settings, and that can make a huge difference in prevention and treatment."
2. The program is a collaboration between NYC Health + Hospitals, the Queens College CUNY Wastewater Epidemiology Laboratory (responsible for collecting wastewater samples), and the Pandemic Response Laboratory (responsible for sequencing samples).
3. The program's expansion comes amid concerns that polio has been silently spreading in New York after the state recently confirmed the nation's first case in nearly a decade. New York also leads the nation's monkeypox outbreak, with 2,675 confirmed cases as of Aug. 17, CDC data shows.