January 6, 2026 | Erin Bluvas, bluvase@sc.edu
New research led by environmental health sciences assistant professor Laura Langan has provided further support for the effectiveness of wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE). Langan and her team compared two of the most common approaches to WBE for monitoring the spread of an active measle outbreak in Texas: reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (more widely available) and RT digital PCR.
They found that while the former demonstrated a higher detection rate than the latter for the vaccine strain quantified in wastewater samples, both methods revealed equivalent detections for the wild-type strain. Publishing their findings in ACS Environmental Au, the authors concluded that regardless of which platform is used, WBE offers a valuable approach for monitoring active outbreaks, which then enables rapid response.
Wastewater-based epidemiology has been used for decades, beginning with the detection and monitoring of poliovirus in Chicago and New York in the 1940s. Since then, it has been used to identify fungal pathogens, mosquito and tickborne diseases, and human respiratory viruses, like SARS-CoV-2. New research has shown that WBE can be used to monitor food borne illnesses and other pathogens as well as drug use such as opioids.
Due to the widespread uptake and effectiveness of vaccines, measles surveillance was not previously a focus of WBE, but declining vaccine rates and the resulting outbreaks have led to a need for monitoring this formerly rare infectious disease. For this study, the research team used two different WBE methodologies to monitor measles prevalence in seven municipalities during an active outbreak in Texas. Analysis of twice weekly samples revealed the presence of the virus using both approaches.
“Over the past 40 years, measles has gone from a state of potential elimination to a resurgence, with studies reporting increased numbers of outbreaks throughout the world and the U.S. in 2024,” says Langan, who notes that 14 outbreaks had been confirmed as of May of 2025 with nearly 1900 confirmed cases in Alberta, Canada alone between March and September. “Our study highlights that regardless of methodology, WBE is a particularly valuable response approach for monitoring measles during an ongoing outbreak event.”