wastewater

But Cole’s progress was short-lived. Her blood infection returned, and her doctors determined the phage-antibiotic combination was no longer effective. She passed away from pneumonia in March 2022, seven months after phage therapy was stopped. Cole’s case demonstrates both the hope and limitations of phage therapy.The problem this time wasn’t just bacterial evolution. When researchers ran follow-up lab tests on Cole’s blood, they found evidence of antibodies against the phage, meaning her immune system activated in a way…

Measles is back with a vengeance. In the UK, where only 85% of school-age children have received two doses of the MMR vaccine, as many as 300 people have contracted the disease since October. And cases are creeping up across the US too.Catching measles outbreaks early is tricky, though. Like many other respiratory viruses, it starts off with a cough, runny nose, fever, and achy body. The telltale rash doesn’t appear for two to four more days. By then, a person is already infectious. Very infectious, in fact. Measles is…

Maybe there’s a solution. The US developed a vast wastewater sampling network to detect covid during the pandemic. Could we leverage that network to provide an early warning system for measles? “I actually think you could make the argument that measles is even more important to than covid or influenza or any of the other pathogens that we’re looking for,” says Samuel Scarpino, an epidemiologist at Northeastern University in Boston. Wastewater surveillance relies on standard lab tests to find genetic evidence of…

Wastewater-based epidemiology, the process of monitoring health indicators through sewage, has become a common way to track the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. But before 2020 scientists were using the technology to follow a different public health threat: the opioid crisis. Just as sewage data can fill gaps in SARS-CoV-2 tracking, this public dumping ground can provide up-to-date, population-level information about which illicit drugs are being used in a community and whether prevention strategies are…

Large advertisement of Japanese luxury skin care products brand, SK-II, in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong.Miguel Candela | Lightrocket | Getty ImagesProcter & Gamble on Tuesday said sales of its high-end SK-II skincare brand fell 34% in the Greater China region during its latest quarter — and it blamed an unlikely culprit.With its high prices and reliance on travel retail, Japan-based SK-II has struggled as China's economic recovery lags. But P&G executives also pointed to another factor that contributed to the brand's…

Wastewater testing does a good job at detecting mpox infections, U.S. health officials said in a report Thursday that bolsters a push to use sewage to track more diseases.U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) researchers found that over the course of a week, there was a 32% likelihood the tests would detect the presence of at least one person infected with mpox in a population ranging from thousands to millions.Amy Kirby, who oversees the CDC’s wastewater surveillance work, said initially they didn’t know…

SAN DIEGO —  Mexico has broken ground on a long-awaited replacement for a crumbling wastewater treatment plant in Baja California that officials said will dramatically reduce the discharge of sewage that has fouled San Diego and Tijuana shorelines.The failing and outdated San Antonio de los Buenos treatment plant in Punta Bandera, about six miles south of the border, is one of the biggest sources of water pollution in the region. Every day, the facility releases millions of gallons of mostly raw sewage into the ocean…

When a toilet is flushed in California, the water can end up in a lot of places: An ice skating rink near Disneyland, ski slopes around Lake Tahoe, farmland in the Central Valley.And — coming soon — kitchen faucets.California regulators on Tuesday approved new rules to let water agencies recycle wastewater and put it right back into the pipes that carry drinking water to homes, schools and businesses.It's a big step for a state that has struggled for decades to secure reliable sources of drinking water for its more than…

December 21, 20234min readHere’s how to plan COVID-safer holiday get-togethers, using websites that show viral levels in wastewaterBy Betsy LadyzhetsWastewater samples, such as these collected in San Jose, Calif., can show rising levels of the COVID-causing virus in a community. Since the start of the COVID pandemic, scientists have tracked the disease-causing coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 by testing water samples from public sewer systems. This practice, called wastewater surveillance, has become an important way to monitor…

Credit: Journal of Environmental Management (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.118485 What could clean energy buses and sewage treatment plants have in common? Answer: the co-location of hydrogen production by electrolysis at a wastewater facility to produce hydrogen for fuel cells to run buses, and oxygen to feed beneficial bacteria in the treatment tanks.…