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(Waste-)water monitoring goes Africa!

Gabriela Eder (far right) in Gabon

Gabriela Eder (far right) in Gabon

Recently, our colleague Gabriela Eder had the pleasure to join Fabian Amman from Bergthaler Lab (Andreas Bergthaler) for a field trip within the Africa-UniNet funded Pathostew project to Lambaréné, Gabon. Together with CERMEL, they explored how Wastewater-Based Epidemiology can be leveraged to monitor infectious diseases in tropical, semi-urban African settings. We are happy that we could support this valuable project with our technical expertise in the field of wastewater surveillance and contribute our know-how on sampling methodology, sample processing and PCR-based pathogen detection. Jointly, methods for detecting rotaviruses in hospital wastewater were tested and successfully established as well as assessed for application in surface water. Rotaviruses cause severe diarrhoeal disease, which is a leading cause of malnutrition and death in young children.