Wastewater testing restarts in Guelph to detect future infectious diseases

A program that was flushed down the drain by the provincial government back in July has been relaunched by a team of researchers out of the University of Guelph (UofG) who want to mitigate risks imposed by infectious diseases like the issues caused by COVID during the pandemic.

It isn’t just about seeing how many people are infected with COVID-19 in the City of Guelph; the system tests for RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) and influenza viruses. The team of researchers out of UofG is hoping to create early warning systems that could help prevent shortages in industries like the biomanufacturing one so that when Canadians need things like COVID-19 tests or personal protective equipment, they can better prepare.

It was restarted with the help of Dr. Lawrence Goodridge, a Professor in the Department of Food Science for UofG, Canada Research Chair in Foodborne Pathogen Dynamics and Co-Director of INSPIRE – an Integrated Network for the Surveillance of Pathogens.

“The biomanufacturing and biomedical supply chains were severely disrupted. The idea is that if we can use wastewater analysis to find pathogens early in the wastewater before people are getting infected, we can work with those supply chains to help them understand the situation so they can make plans,” said Goodridge.

“A number of laboratory supplies are made from plastic or packaged in plastic so because of the shortage there was a time where we could not get laboratory supplies to do the testing that was needed.”

A $15 million boost, most of which came from the Canada Biomedical Research Fund, helped restart surveillance in Guelph.

Goodridge mentioned they only have enough funding to do testing in Guelph but hope to get more to expand to Orangeville and the Niagara Region, as they were doing before the province cut the program.

“If you have to wait to order supplies and restart everything that can two or three months and so at that point the head start, the early warning is gone.”

The Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health (WDG Health) dashboard is active as of Nov. 28 with new data that is provided weekly by the University of Guelph. The program is set to run for at least another three to four years.

Most of that data will be collected by university students, where the program gives them hands-on training and a chance to work on a real-world problem. Goodridge mentioned it highlights to them how they can make a difference in the world.

Universities have taken it upon themselves to get these programs restarted since there is no formal plan or funding anymore.

“Good health decisions come from good information – whether for individuals or our community as a whole. This leadership from the UofG gives each of us, our community, and our local health care system access to data which can help us make decisions that protect our health,” said Dr. Nicola Mercer, Medical Officer of Health and CEO for WDG Health in a statement to CityNews Kitchener.

The University of Windsor and the University of Ottawa have both restarted wastewater surveillance in the communities, but Goodridge mentioned they are missing large amounts of data.

“The GTA for example, Northern Ontario for example, these were all areas where we saw emergence of new variants of COVID during the pandemic,” said Goodridge.

“The Public Health Agency of Canada will step in and do a limited amount of surveillance; I think Toronto will be one of the areas, but so far we don’t know any time frame so it’s a patchwork of surveillance.”

UofG was able to easily restart the wastewater surveillance program because they were one of the first in the country to start it during the pandemic. The lab, personnel and procedures were already in place.

The national wastewater monitoring dashboard was last updated Dec. 17 and shows that data was last collected Dec. 8 in Prince Edward Island. The closest data collected for Waterloo Region was data collected from Toronto Highland Creek Dec. 1, which did report high levels of COVID-19 circulating.

According to the national dashboard – viral activity for COVID-19 is moderate in the country, Flu A is moderate, Flu B is low and viral activity of RSV is high.