There are now countless examples of how wastewater surveillance can be used to track trends in infectious disease transmission within a community. Most of these examples focus on established pathogens that have become endemic within those communities, including SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19). But can these same wastewater methods help detect the introduction of a pathogen into a community? What if the source is just a single person? Wastewater surveillance can't be that sensitive, right?

This episode takes a "deep dive" into the use of wastewater surveillance to monitor for Candida auris, which is an antifungal resistant yeast and emerging public health threat. This episode focuses on two different studies that implemented wastewater surveillance--first in Las Vegas, Nevada, where there was a known outbreak of C. auris, and then in St. George, Utah, where there was no prior evidence of C. auris in the local community.

This is an AI-generated podcast created with NotebookLM based on two publications in Emerging Infectious Diseases. The original articles are available here: https://doi.org/10.3201/eid2902.221523 and https://doi.org/10.3201/eid3010.240173