Monitoring Wastewater Plants for Measles
Let's find measles cases as soon as possible!
Finally, some good news among all the daily reports of new measles cases!
“The city is monitoring 36 wastewater treatment plants and 48 manholes across Houston for measles, Dr. Janeana White, the health department’s deputy health authority, said Tuesday during a statewide webinar organized by Houston-based nonprofit Children at Risk.”
Houston Health Department tracking wastewater plants for measles as West Texas outbreak grows
Some public health experts are actively looking for new measles cases!
Monitoring Wastewater Plants for Measles
Wait, how does monitoring wastewater plants help you find new measles cases?
Surprisingly, the answer is shedding!
“Measles RNA shedding, primarily from urine, contributes an average of 8.72 log10 genome copies (GC) daily per infection into sewage.”
Temporal, spatial, and methodological considerations in evaluating the viability of measles wastewater surveillance
When you are sick with measles, you shed the virus in your urine.
So by testing and monitoring the urine that goes into wastewater plants, you can detect if wild measles cases are on the rise in your area.
“Finding measles virus in wastewater can suggest undetected virus transmission.”
Detection of Measles Virus Genotype D8 in Wastewater of the Brussels Capital Region, Belgium
You can even detect measles cases that you didn’t know about yet!
This kind of early detection can help you increase surveillance activities and help get more folks vaccinated and protected.
Basically, it can help keep small outbreaks from turning into big outbreaks or epidemics! And wastewater testing is also being used to monitor COVID, polio, RSV, bird flu, and other viral infections in many cities.
And no, there isn’t any conspiracy around it.
Detecting these viruses in wastewater doesn’t mean that anyone is actively trying to contaminate our water to make us sick!
The viruses are found in wastewater, not tap water…
References
Houston Health Department tracking wastewater plants for measles as West Texas outbreak grows. https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/health-science/2025/03/11/515746/houston-health-department-is-tracking-wastewater-plants-for-measles-so-far-none-has-been-detected/
Chen W, Bibby K. Temporal, spatial, and methodological considerations in evaluating the viability of measles wastewater surveillance. Sci Total Environ. 2025 Jan 10;959:178141. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.178141. Epub 2024 Dec 21. PMID: 39709841.
Detection of Measles Virus Genotype A in a Non-Endemic Wastewater Setting: Insights from Measles Wastewater and Environmental Monitoring in Canada’s Capital Region
Emma Tomalty, Élisabeth Mercier, Lakshmi Pisharody, Tram Nguyen, Xin Tian, Md Pervez Kabir, Chandler Wong, Felix Addo, Nada Hegazy, Elizabeth Renouf, Dara Spatz Friedman, Shen Wan, and Robert Delatolla. Environmental Science & Technology Letters 2025 12 (2), 124-129. DOI: 10.1021/acs.estlett.4c00945
Wu J, Wang MX, Kalvapalle P, Nute M, Treangen TJ, Ensor K, Hopkins L, Poretsky R, Stadler LB. Multiplexed Detection, Partitioning, and Persistence of Wild-Type and Vaccine Strains of Measles, Mumps, and Rubella Viruses in Wastewater. Environ Sci Technol. 2024 Dec 17;58(50):21930-21941. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.4c05344. Epub 2024 Dec 9. PMID: 39651927.
Rector A, Bloemen M, Hoorelbeke B, Van Ranst M, Wollants E. Detection of Measles Virus Genotype D8 in Wastewater of the Brussels Capital Region, Belgium. J Med Virol. 2025 Feb;97(2):e70251. doi: 10.1002/jmv.70251. PMID: 39957688; PMCID: PMC11831582.
Post Pandemic: Wastewater-based Surveillance of Diseases Comes of Age. https://healthpolicy-watch.news/post-pandemic-wastewater-based-surveillance-of-diseases-comes-of-age/