Sequencing-Based Detection of Measles in Wastewater: Texas, January 2025
Sara J. Javornik Cregeen et al.
Abstract
Measles is a potentially deadly viral infection spread via respiratory droplets from infected individuals. Outbreaks occur when vaccine coverage drops below the threshold of herd, or community, immunity. Using a sequencing-based approach, we report the prospective (January 7, 2025) detection of measles in nucleic acid extracts from 2 wastewater treatment plants in Houston, Texas, with a population of more than 218 000 residents. The sequencing data from 2 samples contained 53 unique reads mapping to 11 different regions of the measles virus genome with a 99.4% match to genotype B3. Importantly, no detections were observed from 821 previous samples from the same city spanning nearly 3 years of monitoring. The findings were confirmed using droplet digital polymerase chain reaction. A concomitant investigation identified 2 unvaccinated measles-positive travelers living within the same sewershed as the wastewater detection event. This work suggests that sequencing-based wastewater analysis is valuable as a comprehensive early detection warning system that facilitates more targeted epidemiological investigation. (Am J Public Health. 2025;115(7):1115-1119. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2025.308146).
5 citations
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.41 × 0.4 = 0.16 |
| M · momentum | 0.63 × 0.15 = 0.09 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
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