Alberta wastewater unlocked key information about COVID-19. Could it help with measles too?
CBC
As Alberta's measles outbreaks grow, researchers are now watching the province's wastewater for the highly contagious virus and hoping to determine if the technology could eventually serve as an early detection tool.
The magnitude of Alberta's outbreaks and the speed at which cases are climbing has sparked widespread concern. As of midday Tuesday, 1,323 cases had been confirmed since the outbreaks began in March.
Piggybacking off weekly wastewater samples, collected through the provincial COVID-19 surveillance program, the team has designed a test that can identify both the wild type measles virus (indicating actual infection) and vaccine-related shedding in the wastewater.
"Wastewater surveillance was shown to be very useful globally — internationally — during COVID-19," said Dr. Bonita Lee, a co-lead with the pan-Alberta Network for Wastewater Monitoring, which includes researchers from both the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary.
Samples are taken from 12 Alberta wastewater treatment plants sites each week and sent to the provincial lab for analysis.
Once the testing for SARS-CoV-2 is complete, the researchers analyze the same samples for measles.
Without any additional funding, the team began looking for the virus at the beginning of April, after the first cases were confirmed in Edmonton, according to Lee.
They found measles virus signals in the water for that time period and they've since tracked provincial trends.
"Basically we have a lot of measles activity and it's increasing," said Lee, a professor of infectious diseases in the department of pediatrics at the University of Alberta.
Scientists can't identify individual cases through this molecular testing. Instead they get a population-level view, she explained.
Alberta's official measles case count is widely believed, by doctors and scientists, to be an underestimate. And the provincial government's website acknowledges cases are likely going unreported and undetected in the hardest hit parts of the province.
According to Lee, wastewater monitoring could be most helpful in areas where measles cases may be going undetected and public health officials want to better understand what's happening.
"It's never useful by itself. It will always be useful as a supplementary surveillance tool," she said.
Dr. Xiaoli Pang recently retired after working as a virologist in the provincial lab for 25 years and leading the wastewater surveillance program.
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