Pandemics start slowly — a few cases here, a few there — until suddenly people are sick or dying everywhere. Early detection by monitoring wastewater can help short-circuit that cycle.
It’s difficult to tell what is happening right now with highly pathogenic avian influenza A H5N1 (bird flu), which is rapidly spreading among cows and other mammals. The outbreak has raised concerns among virologists and epidemiologists that the current spread in mammals may allow the bird flu virus to adapt to mammalian physiology, pre-adapting it for sustained spread among humans, which could be catastrophic.
Read the rest…