Biobot Analytics

ALT Screenshot of a Scientific American article header JANUARY 24, 2024 5 MIN READ The Opioid Crisis Is Now Being Tracked with Wastewater Levels of opioids and other drugs in sewage could help public health authorities home in on drug use and target treatment efforts BY BETSY LADYZHETS Photo caption: A worker tests wastewater for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. Wastewater testing is now being used to monitor illicit drug use. Credit: Scott Eisen/Bloomberg via Getty Images

ALT Wastewater-based epidemiology, the process of monitoring health indicators through sewage, has become a common way to track the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. But before 2020 scientists were using the technology to follow a different public health threat: the opioid crisis. Just as sewage data can fill gaps in SARS-CoV-2 tracking, this public dumping ground can provide up-to-date, population-level information about which illicit drugs are being used in a community and whether prevention strategies are having an impact. Thanks to the expansion of wastewater testing in the last four years, opioid monitoring efforts have gained new interest, culminating last fall in a program run by wastewater testing startup Biobot Analytics. Biobot, which has worked with national and local U.S. agencies on COVID tracking, recently announced that it is testing sewage samples from 70 sites across the U.S. for opioids and several other common drugs...