Tracking down the source of a disease outbreak is often challenging, requiring a laborious combination of in-person detective work, laboratory analyses and data crunching. The approach hasn’t changed that much since 1854, when physician John Snow identified the source of a cholera outbreak in London by interviewing residents and mapping out where the infected people lived.
Surely there must be another way. There is, and it lies right beneath our feet. Researchers are increasingly turning to wastewater in municipal sewer systems as an efficient, effective way to monitor a community’s health and spot outbreaks early on.
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