Learn more about the future of wastewater surveillance to protect public health.

Agenda

Moderator:  Dr. Itai Bar-Or - Director | Israel National Centre for Environmental Virology

1. Israeli Ministry of Health about the future of public health in the collection system
   Moshe  Wein -WBE Surveillance Project Lead | Israeli Ministry of Health
   
   
2. Managing an evolving pandemic using virome abundance and diversity 
   Prof. Ariel Kushmaro - Department of Biotechnology Engineering | BGU
   
   
3. Tracking antimicrobial resistance using a One Health-based approach
   Prof. Jacob Moran-Gilad, MD MPH FESCMID | Ben Gurion University of the Negev 
   
   
4. Lessons learned and the future outlook of public health surveillance. 
   Jordan Schmidt - Director, Product Applications | LuminUltra Technologies Ltd
   
   
5. From pandemic disaster to pandemic preparedness: Valuable insights from two continents 
   Kerusha Lutchmiah - Consultant & Project Manager - Water Technology International | Royal Haskoning DHV
   
   In this session we’ll share the lessons learned while integrating and comparing clinical and wastewater surveillance data from the Netherlands and South Africa into our dashboard.
   A dashboard is only as good as the data it receives, so developing a standardized data protocol was imperative to overcoming the challenges in the two very different countries.
   These challenges include:
   - Lack of funds & lack of ownership
   - Testing not being accessible to everyone
   - Large gaps in data, unexplained peaks and differences in normalization
   - Differences in methodologies and monitoring regimes
   - Privacy regulations
   - Politics, including country bans and their consequence on research
   
   Regardless of the challenges, a comparison of the data was still possible, resulting in valuable outcomes. This showed that a beneficial pandemic monitoring program can be developed with urgency, to predict future measures and prevent further surges.