Monitoring an Emergent Pathogen at Low Incidence in Wastewater Using qPCR: Mpox in Switzerland.

ABSTRACT: Wastewater-based epidemiology offers a complementary approach to clinical case-based surveillance of emergent diseases and can help identify regions with infected people to prioritize clinical surveillance strategies. However, tracking emergent diseases in wastewater requires reliance on novel testing assays with uncertain sensitivity and specificity. Limited pathogen shedding may cause detection to be below the limit of quantification or bordering the limit of detection. Here, we investigated how the definition of limit of detection for quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) impacts epidemiological insights during an mpox outbreak in Switzerland. 365 wastewater samples from three wastewater treatment plants in Switzerland from 9 March through 31 October 2022 were analyzed for mpox

SUBMITTER: Julian TR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11422434 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature