Measles outbreak surveillance confirms utility of wastewater-based epidemiology for monitoring infectious disease surges

New research led by University of South Carolina environmental health sciences assistant professor Laura Langan has provided further support for the effectiveness of wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE). Langan and her team have compared two of the most common approaches to WBE for monitoring the spread of an active measles outbreak in Texas: reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (more widely available) and RT digital PCR.