"Alaska Health Officials Expand Wastewater Virus Testing Amid COVID Pandemic"

Alaska health officials are expanding efforts to use wastewater testing as a tool to track the spread of viruses, including COVID-19, tuberculosis, RSV, flu, monkeypox, and noroviruses. Wastewater testing serves as an early warning system, detecting virus levels before symptoms appear, and has become crucial as fewer people are getting tested for COVID-19. The state is working to expand testing to rural areas and track other diseases, hiring a wastewater informaticist and planning to publish weekly data online. The University of Alaska Anchorage lab is also expanding its efforts to detect other viruses and hopes to use the data to inform public health decisions and resource allocation.