University of Louisville (Malawi)
The University of Louisville is a public university in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. Established in 1798, the college is a member of the Kentucky state university system and is the state’s most important, nationally recognised metropolitan research university. With a student body of over 23,000 (as of Autumn 2021) and faculty/staff totalling over 7,000, it comprises 13 Academic Schools and Colleges, with fields of expertise in medicine, public health, and information sciences.
In 2022/2023, the Eurofins Foundation contributed to a partnership between the University of Louisville, the Malawi University of Science and Technology, and Eurofins Scientific to support a multi-pathogen wastewater surveillance pilot in Malawi.
The pilot aimed to set up a multi-pathogen community wastewater surveillance that would allow low and middle-income county communities to provide quicker public health responses and to stop any disease outbreaks.
Approximately 98% of the Malawian population relies on onsite sanitation systems as opposed to centralised treatment plants servicing piped sewer networks. This type of sanitation structure – which is mainly composed of shared pit latrines – is more prone to pathogen spread.
There are logistical constraints on piloting community wastewater pathogen detection for low and middle-income countries, namely a lack of consistent power in the laboratory and internet for data sharing, and no local primer or probe manufacturing, meaning all equipment and reagents must be imported. Although there is extensive local expertise in setting up multi-parameter water quality laboratories and single wastewater pathogen detection in such environments, how this will apply to multi-pathogen wastewater surveillance system has not been tried in real world conditions in Malawi yet.
To be able to detect and contain re-emerging and novel threats, best practices for setting up multi-pathogen wastewater surveillance in these types of environments must be developed and shared. Two of the proposed pathogens on which the pilot project focuses, SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) and cholera, have had active outbreaks in 2022. This new surveillance method therefore offers a unique testing situation, and the innovative project will help to advocate for its implementation on a government level.
The pilot project has reached the following milestones by December 2023:
- Successfully wrapped up a laboratory pilot in Malawi on primers and probes for cholera. This was developed in partnership with the Malawi University of Science and Technology, University of Louisville and the Eurofins Environment Testing California Wastewater team.
- Started ongoing collaborative discussions about the development of primers and probes for measles as the next priority pathogen.
- Published two peer-reviewed papers on wastewater public health surveillance in Malawi.
- An online webinar was organised based on the results of the study.
- Girls Science Day in Malawi was held in June 2023, focusing on wastewater, sanitation, and viruses. 250 girls attended from 5 local elementary schools. The University of Louisville also included a scope around ‘Jobs in STEM’ under the wastewater, sanitation, and virus themes, as there is a very high youth unemployment rate in Malawi.
The Eurofins Foundation renews its support to this project in 2023/2024.
This project contributes to the following United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals
