Environmental surveillance for SARS-COV-2 to complement public health surveillance – Interim Guidance

Overview

Routine diagnostic surveillance for COVID-19 has been augmented with environmental surveillance (ES) in wastewater in many locations. ES provides additional evidence on virus in circulation at population level including presence or absence, early warning of increasing or decreasing trends, and information on variants of concern or interest.  This guidance provides advice on:

• What situations ES has been shown to add value to public health decision making
• What is needed to plan and coordinate an effective ES programme
• How to carry out data collection, analysis, interpretation and communication of results.

This guidance is targeted at public health officials who want to understand and integrate complementary ES into COVID-19 control strategies.

This version has been superseded by the August 2023 version