Wastewater Surveillance on Canadian Campuses

When the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in Canada in 2020, universities, public health units, and government ministries scrambled to find ways to monitor and detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus. With new funding opportunities for pandemic-related research, universities across North America became leaders in developing tools and techniques to monitor the virus. As a result, we saw, and continue to see, wastewater surveillance being rolled out across public and private post-secondary institutions in Canada.  

These initiatives are guided by ethical principles developed by the World Health Organization and the Canadian Water Network that promote surveillance for the common good; equity in monitoring and distributing the benefits of surveillance; respect for persons and populations, including their involvement in decision-making; and good governance through community engagement and transparency.*  

Our project hopes to contribute towards community engagement and transparency by offering a publicly available mapping of the different wastewater surveillance initiatives on post-secondary campuses across Canada. The information is updated as we gather more data. If your institution is not represented here or does not have up-to-date data, please get in touch with us ([email protected]). You can also fill out the survey here.