Establishing New Zealand's national pathogen surveillance system using wastewater-based epidemiology

ABSTRACT

This paper reflects on the work that was done to establish a national wastewater pathogen surveillance system in New Zealand in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. After a short review of the wastewater literature, a timeline of SARS-CoV-2 is described to situate the work in a country that effectively eliminated COVID-19 from the community, but at the time of writing had a population that was more exposed than in other countries. The paper then turns to describe three broad categories of research needed to establish the COVID-19 wastewater surveillance system monitoring, data analysis and ethics. Some of the work covers familiar ground for those trained in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, such as the spatial location and temporal frequency of field sampling. Other work sits more comfortably with those trained in the humanities and social science, such as population mobility and the ethics of surveillance. The message that comes from our experience is the need to work together, which takes courage, empathy and patience as we learn to accept each other's epistemological foundations and modus operandi.