Tracking Disease Outbreaks in Jails

An innovative partnership between infectious disease researchers and the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta has produced insight that could help detect and track future disease outbreaks.

A study of samples of the jail’s wastewater collected nearly every week between October 2021 and May 2022 found a correlation between the percentage of positive COVID-19 tests among jail residents and the COVID-19 levels detected in the wastewater.

The study, led by researchers at Rollins School of Public Health, was recently published in the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s open-access, peer-reviewed journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Results from the feasibility study show that wastewater-based surveillance could not only help detect and mitigate future COVID-19 outbreaks but also detect other viral infection trends in jail settings. “We knew the technology worked in college dormitories, but jails are settings that needed to be studied,” says Anne Spaulding (above), associate professor of epidemiology at Rollins. “Because so many people pass through jails, protecting the health of detained individuals impacts the health of entire communities.”