During the 2020-2023 COVID-19 Global Public Health Emergency of International Concern, rapid
; progress was made with the application of Wastewater-Based Surveillance (WBS) (also known as
; Wastewater-Based Epidemiology (WBE)) to provide population-scale evidence of SARS-CoV-2
; shedding into wastewater. The information gained was used to help monitor, communicate, and
; manage the COVID-19 pandemic.
; Rapid and significant innovations in the field of WBS were realised in parallel in multiple
; jurisdictions globally. Global collaboration resulted in step-change improvements in multiple
; aspects of WBS simultaneously, including: health sector leadership; integration with public health
; surveillance; social and ethical guidance; high-level tactical wastewater catchment sampling
; strategies; wastewater sampling techniques; transport and storage of samples; laboratory
; analysis; normalisation and standardisation; data analysis and interpretation; and communication
; of results.
; Innovations in WBS relating to COVID-19 continue to take place, and the benefits of those
; improvements are now being applied to other targets, such as other pathogens and genes. There
; are many journal articles and other publications describing these innovations. However, valuable
; lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic for WBS have not been systematically documented into a
; practical and readily digestible format.
; The purpose of this ‘Cookbook’ is to provide practical and proven ‘recipes’ for WBS for SARS-CoV-2
; for two reasons: firstly to help those considering new or extended WBS programmes targeting
; SARS-CoV-2; and secondly to provide a valuable record of what has been learned from the 2020-
; 2023 period to help inform WBS programmes to respond to future pandemics and for surveillance
; of other targets.
; The Cookbook is structured into eight parts: 1. Introduction; 2. High-level Overview; 3. Health
; Sector Perspectives; 4. Methods and Methodologies — From data to action; 5. Methods and
; Methodologies — Measurement and testing; 6. Methods and Methodologies — Sampling; 6. Methods
; and Methodologies — Transportation protocols; 8. Conclusions. Multiple authors have contributed to
; each part, primarily from the European Union, as well as others from the global community of
; practice.
; The Cookbook has been drafted by a global team of authors, with one or more lead authors
; identified for each chapter and working with their co-authors. The chapters were then subjected to
; extensive peer review from the external review group. These authors and reviewers are
; acknowledged in the Cookbook.