InerOme, University of California San Diego, and Fry Laboratories published an article in the Journal of Precision Medicine, detailing a cloud based digital health Surveillance of Wastewater and Prevention Platform for COVID-19.
Authors: Corina J Shtir, Austin D Swafford, Jeremy E Ellis and Andrew P Bartko
Journal of Precision Medicine | Volume 7 | Issue 3 | September 2021
Abstract
COVID-19 caused unprecedented disruptions across healthcare systems and global economies, exposing an unmet need for precision public health (PPH) measures. Incidence and prevalence rate estimates rely on seamless delivery of relevant information when and where it is needed most. Wastewater-based Epidemiology (WBE) complements clinical COVID-19 testing via a cost efficient and scalable approach. Digital health (DH) provides the catalyst for WBE stakeholders to support healthcare practitioners and affiliates.
In this article we summarize the elements necessary to support PPH via WBE, and illustrate the roadmap addressed via SWAPP (Surveillance of Wastewater and Prevention Platform), a dynamic, cloud-based DH platform, developed by InterOme. Collaborative synergies between InterOme, University of California San Diego, and Fry Laboratories are detailed, all of which are necessary for robust PPH efforts. We describe the WBE scope of work necessary for multiple WBE healthcare stakeholders and how SWAPP is designed to address the expanding lens of PPH for the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. We present the architecture of SWAPP and illustrate the critical role of multi-omic advanced analytics. While the goal of WBE is to collect analytical measurements of the viral concentrations within wastewater, the goal of SWAPP is to convert these results, align other data sources, and contextualize the integrated data package into tractable knowledge.
“Even before COVID hit the US healthcare systems, the inefficiency of finding the necessary information or inability to successfully connect the innumerable and ever-increasing datapoints ultimately contribute to US healthcare costs”
Even after the COVID-19 pandemic, we anticipate an ongoing and substantial demand for DH to improve management of infectious diseases, and ultimately diseases in general. SWAPP serves as a foundation for future applications that will accelerate the progression from monolithic approaches (e.g., clinical, genomic, proteomic) to more consolidative models essential for PPH.