UK’s first water tracking centre launched at the University of Bath

The Centre of Excellence Water-Based Early-Warning Systems for Health Protection (CWBE) has been launched at the University of Bath. It is the UK’s first pilot wastewater monitoring centre and could play a key role in preventing future pandemics. Indeed, CWBE researchers will track virus and bacterial DNA in wastewater samples, which can act as an early-warning system for disease outbreaks. The centre will start monitoring weekly samples from four “living labs” in Bath, Bristol, Paulton, and Radstock. Once their work is established, the team hopes the monitoring system will be extended to the rest of the country. The collected data could alert public authorities of new outbreaks and help hospitals prepare for treating patients.
Chemicals excreted by the body, medications, dietary habits, and personal care products will also be tracked from the samples, studying the interaction of diet and lifestyle choices with chronic health conditions. CWBE lead professor Barbara Kasprzyk-Hordern said it is cheaper and faster to get reliable data on disease outbreaks from the analysis of wastewater, which can also pick up asymptomatic cases and those from difficult-to-reach communities. Researchers will cooperate with Wessex Water to collect and analyse the weekly samples.