A collaborative of public health groups are utilizing tools like wastewater surveillance to monitor pathogens throughout the upcoming FIFA World Cup, hoping to detect and prevent the spread of disease during the massive soccer event -- and to trigger a public health response early if threats arise.
The effort is being led by the Health Security Operations Center (HSOC), a project of Georgetown University's National Center for Health Security and Resilience in partnership with MedStar Health.
Rebecca Katz, PhD, MPH, a professor at Georgetown University and director of HSOC, described it as an "independent civil society effort" with more than 30 collaborators monitoring infectious disease threats throughout the World Cup.
Katz noted that when it comes to major global events, the onus to prepare for public health threats and conduct monitoring usually falls on the host country. However, America's public health infrastructure has been gutted in recent years, and the Trump administration removed the U.S. from the World Health Organization earlier this year.
A CDC spokesperson told MedPage Today the agency is utilizing "syndromic surveillance, laboratory data, wastewater surveillance, traveler-based genomic surveillance, and event-based intelligence" in their World Cup surveillance.
