The leader of Ohio’s health department says the wastewater monitoring program that was put in place last year to monitor COVID will be expanded for use in the future.
Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff says the technology Ohio has been using to monitor COVID in wastewater will continue and expand to capture information about bacterial illnesses.
“Some of these food-borne bacterial outbreaks that it would be very helpful to know something is going on.”
Vanderhoff says when illnesses are detected in significant amounts in wastewater, ODH can work with local health authorities to put preventive policies in place to deal with outbreaks. And that, he says, reduces strain on hospitals and helps prevent more illnesses.