How unhealthy is the flu season going to be this winter?

Healthy Central Valley Together will assist eight cities in three Central Valley counties reply that query.

HCVT on Thursday started monitoring for influenza A and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) by the wastewater to assist public well being officers and residents in Stanislaus, Merced and Yolo counties monitor and reply to these infectious ailments.

The public-health collaborative has been monitoring for genetic markers of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) in collaborating communities’ sewage for the previous eight months and added monkeypox (MPX) this summer time. The collaborating communities are Turlock, Modesto, Merced, Los Banos, Davis, Esparto, Winters and Woodland.

“Recent wastewater sampling for COVID-19 also indicates increasing levels of COVID-19 circulating in the Modesto area. Information provided by wastewater sampling is an important surveillance tool for us, and gives Public Health a sense of the spread of COVID-19 in our community, including whether the spread is increasing, decreasing, or staying about the same.  This is especially helpful to Public Health right now because the information we currently receive on the number of positive COVID-19 test results is limited compared to earlier in the pandemic. Many people who are ill now self-perform over-the-counter COVID-19 tests.  While these are great tools and provide convenience, the test results are not reported to public health. Wastewater sampling provides Public Health departments with information on COVID-19 that wouldn’t otherwise be available,” mentioned new Stanislaus County Public Health Officer Dr. Thea Papasozomenos.

HCVT is a partnership between UC Merced, UC Davis public well being companies and communities that works to stop the unfold of COVID-19 and different pathogens by utilizing wastewater to tell public well being methods.

The addition of flu and RSV comes as circumstances of these viruses have been rising dramatically nationally. Those ailments share a number of signs (frequent with SARS-CoV-2 as effectively), which makes community-wide monitoring tougher. Because wastewater monitoring appears to be like for genetic supplies particular to every virus and contains everybody who makes use of a sewage system, it offers an correct view of infections throughout your entire inhabitants.

The growth within the variety of ailments tracked is the results of HCVT becoming a member of WastewaterSCAN, a nationwide effort based mostly at Stanford University to unfold a number one method for monitoring ailments by municipal wastewater methods to tell public well being responses domestically and nationally. HCVT independently has been utilizing WastewaterSCAN’s analytical strategies, all of that are publicly accessible, from the beginning of its work. The nearer alignment means HCVT will have the ability to entry extra quickly any new testing for extra pathogens that WastewaterSCAN adopts.

Results from wastewater monitoring for flu and RSV will start to be accessible at https://healthycvtogether.org/ later this month, together with continued reporting of COVID-19 and MPX knowledge.