EXCLUSIVE — Funding for wastewater surveillance is slated to run dry unless Congress boosts funding for the infectious disease prevention program as part of next year’s budget appropriation. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Wastewater Surveillance System was initially created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic but has since become a central part of protecting the public from measles, bird flu, and other infectious disease outbreaks. The NWSS was launched in September 2020 by the CDC to connect independent state and local wastewater treatment plants into a network for infectious disease surveillance to give advanced warning of where outbreaks are likely to occur.
Between 2021 and 2024, the federal government invested more than $500 million in COVID-19 relief spending for the project, but Congress has not yet allocated dedicated, non-emergency funding for the program.
A senior CDC official told the Washington Examiner that the Department of Health and Human Services is utilizing unspent COVID-era funds from prior years to keep the program operational, but the operating budget is thinning. The official said wastewater surveillance has become a critical part of preventing infectious disease outbreaks.
