The Robert Koch Institute (RKI): main building in Berlin. more
Germany’s Public Health institute RKI monitors the population’s health and wellbeing. more
The Robert Koch Institute is the German government's central institution for the identification, surveillance and prevention of infectious diseases in the Portfolio of the German Ministry of Health. more
Monitoring of SARS-CoV-2, Influenza, and other Pathogens in Wastewater
Infectious agents enter wastewater i.e. through feces and can be detected there. The systematic monitoring of wastewater for infectious agents with the aim of making decisions for population-based measures is referred to as wastewater-based surveillance (also known as wastewater surveillance for short). The collected data allow for insights into the trend of infection dynamics. The measured values can be compared and analyzed in conjunction with information from existing reporting systems. Experts can thus comprehensively assess the local situation and derive population-based measures for pandemic management.
YouTube Playlist: Wastewater Monitoring - How does it work? / Which infectious agents are suitable?
The AMELAG project (Wastewater Monitoring for Epidemiological Situation Assessment) is the follow-up project to ESI-CorA and aims for the continuous monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 virus load in wastewater. Key tasks include:
Weekly Report on Wastewater Surveillance (29.5.2024)
Open data from AMELAG are available on Zenodo and GitHub.
The project AMELAG is funded by the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG). It is carried out by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) and the Federal Environment Agency (UBA). Also involved are the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety, and Consumer Protection (BMUV), wastewater treatment plant operators of the 16 federal states, the Bundeswehr Medical Service, state laboratories, the Technical University of Darmstadt and other universities.
The team of scientists is interdisciplinary and brings expertise from natural sciences, medical sciences and communication sciences, as well as data science and statistics.
Duration: November 1, 2022, to December 31, 2024
E-mail: abwassersurveillance@rki.de
Date: 30.05.2024
