Scotland’s pioneering project to monitor Covid by measuring its genetic material in wastewater will continue for another year after an additional £2.3 million of funding was announced by the Scottish government.
The extension until March 2022 means that the Scottish Environment Protection Agency’s laboratory near Eurocentral will continue analysing around 200 samples a week, collected by Scottish Water from wastewater treatment works across the country. Current monitoring is focussed on supporting the community testing programme and represents over 70% of the Scottish population.
Samples from every health board area are tested for traces of non-infective Covid genetic material and shared with public health partners so they can see where rates are increasing or decreasing.
In combination with community testing, this information is helping Scotland understand the prevalence and distribution of the virus, and gives a broader, unbiased, picture of the possible number of cases in a community.
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