Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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1605. To ask the Minister for Health if his Department is participating in an EU Commission initiative on the monitoring of Covid-19 and its variants in wastewater and availing of funding from the Commission for this initiative; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18409/21]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Wastewater surveillance involves the analysis of SARS-CoV-2 genetic material in sewage samples which will capture both symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals in the community, providing an early warning system that will identify when SARS-CoV-2 levels are increasing in the community.

At its meeting on 12 November 2020, the NPHET endorsed a paper “SARS-CoV-2 wastewater surveillance in Ireland” and recommended that the NVRL and HPSC work collaboratively to implement a national wastewater surveillance network for SARS-CoV-2. The paper is available online:

An inter-agency wastewater surveillance group has been established to develop this national wastewater programme. Sampling is already being undertaken in Dublin and there is a plan in place to expand sampling to more than 60 wastewater treatment plants across all 26 counties. This will be fully operational in the coming weeks. The programme is funded by the HSE.

It should be noted that this type of enhanced surveillance doesn't provide much additional information when there are high levels of virus circulating, but it can be an effective early warning system when there are low levels of circulating virus in the community and it will form an important component of Ireland's overall surveillance system in the coming period.