The University of Guelph and Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health have partnered to support the continuation of wastewater monitoring of COVID-19, influenza and more in the city of Guelph.
This new agreement will see a team of U of G researchers under the direction of Dr. Lawrence Goodridge and Dr. Marc Habash provide sampling and analysis of city of Guelph wastewater three times a week.
Goodridge, the Canada Research Chair in Foodborne Pathogen Dynamics and a professor in the Department of Food Science, and Habash, a School of Environmental Sciences professor, will focus on detecting COVID-19, RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), influenza viruses and mpox.
They are submitting their data to WDG Health, which is sharing the findings on a dashboard on the WDG Health website.
“We are pleased to provide this testing once again as wastewater surveillance has been repeatedly demonstrated as a low-cost and effective tool for detecting seasonal viruses and potential new threats,” says Goodridge.
Habash adds: “At our facilities on campus, we are able to regularly conduct PCR testing on viruses we detect in wastewater as well as perform genetic sequencing on select samples to monitor for new or emerging viral strains.”
The U of G research team has received significant funding for its work through NSERC and the Canada Research Chair program. To further support the wastewater surveillance in Guelph the U of G team will use funding from INSPIRE, a $15 million initiative announced earlier this year to advance wastewater surveillance to identify infectious diseases. Goodridge is co-director of that research project, which is developing technologies to accelerate wastewater sampling and pathogen detection methods.
“The data we gather in this testing will be shared with our partners at WDG Health and compiled and analyzed for further research publication,” says Goodridge.
The U of G team was one of the first in Canada to launch surveillance of campus wastewater in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and became leaders in Ontario.
U of G’s wastewater monitoring program started in 2020 as a research project to better understand the levels of SARS-CoV-2 on campus. It was later expanded to monitor wastewater in the cities of Guelph and Orangeville and the Niagara Region, serving as a useful indicator of community pathogen transmission.
“Wastewater surveillance has become a key tool in protecting the health of our region,” says Dr. Nicola Mercer, medical officer of health and CEO of WDG Public Health.
“Having access to this information lets all of us — from health care organizations to individuals — better understand our risk and make decisions that impact our health. This leadership from the University of Guelph makes our region safer and healthier.”