Travelers returning to four major international airports now have the option to be tested for more than 30 pathogens, building upon a program that tracks coronavirus variants,This expanded testing, which has just started, will continue for three months as a pilot program designed to track winter respiratory diseases such as seasonal flu. The program will also screen wastewater from airplanes and airport terminals, adding population-level data to information from voluntary nasal swabs.
This program could catch potential health threats that might be “the next COVID,” says Sam Scarpino, an epidemiologist at Northeastern University in Boston. The new data may also inform public health guidance during outbreaks of seasonal viruses like the flu, he says.program has tracked the global evolution of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, through voluntary nasal swab PCR testing at international airports. In August, the program) — along with John F.
The expanded program is “a really smart way” to look for new pathogens reaching the United States through international travel, says Rachel Poretsky, a microbiologist at the University of Illinois Chicago who directs local wastewater monitoring programs. She’d like to see the CDC expand further to more airports as well as other travel hubs such as bus and train stations.
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