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Credit: Photo courtesy Louisville/Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer District.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The University of Louisville has received $8.6 million from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to back research that could help health departments use wastewater to monitor the rate of COVID-19 infection.
UofL researchers already are testing wastewater to determine whether coronavirus infection exists in different neighborhoods around Jefferson County. This new work goes one step further, with the goal of estimating how many people within those neighborhoods are infected. If virus levels are high in the wastewater, it may be a signal of widespread infection in the community.
University of Louisville receives $8.6 million for COVID-19 wastewater research
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UofL researchers already are testing wastewater to determine whether coronavirus infection exists in different neighborhoods around Jefferson County, Kentucky. A new $8.6 million grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will allow the work to go one step further, with the goal of estimating how many people within those neighborhoods are infected.
Troy R. Henderson Sr., Louisville/Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer District water quality engineer, obtains a wastewater sample in Jefferson County, Ky. Photo courtesy MSD.
“The aim of the project is to figure out whether we can estimate how many people in a given area are infected by simply testing the community wastewater,” said Ted Smith, associate professor of medicine and a lead on the wastewater epidemiology project.