US: Monitoring community health through wastewater analysis: Gator WATCH™ partnership with the National Drug Early Warning System (NDEWS)

National Drug Early Warning System (NDEWS) – Trending Analysis

Led by University of Florida faculty, Gator WATCH™ is a comprehensive program of Wastewater Analysis for Tracking Community Health. It brings together a multidisciplinary team to develop and validate community wastewater analysis as a powerful new public health surveillance tool.

Previously focusing on surveillance of SARS-CoV-2, Gator WATCH™ is now expanding beyond infectious disease surveillance to new areas that include monitoring of illicit drugs through a newly forged partnership with the National Drug Early Warning System (NDEWS) Coordinating Center, directed by Dr. Linda Cottler, Professor in the Department of Epidemiology. ‘Real time’ data will be identified by measuring human excreted chemicals or biological surrogate molecules in wastewater. Initial efforts have led to the development for quantifying fentanyl and metabolites in wastewater collected from 4 NDEWS sentinel sites, and will be applied to a suite of over 70 other drug targets. Data trends will be released soon.

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