Galway Bay fm newsroom - An NUI Galway academic has found that regularly testing sewerage in cities could reveal early signs of serious disease and pandemics.
As part of her work on the Global Food Surveillance Project, NUIG Professor Dearbhaile Morris has concluded that consistently monitoring waste water could provide early warnings of future outbreaks.
The research, which looked at 82 large urban centres across the world, has found one of the key benefits of looking at sewerage is it provides a picture of community health as a whole.
Through the study, investigators looked at the genetic make-up of sewerage to identify any potential harmful genetic markers which may be lurking in the general population.
This technique has previously been used in identifying and halting other outbreaks including ebola, zika and yellow fever around the world.
