What human waste can tell us about monkeypox

Las Vegas, Nevada – First, it was COVID-19 that drove some Las Vegas scientists to the sewers.

Now, it’s monkeypox.

Turns out, going down the toilet can tell us a lot about diseases spreading in an area.

Similarly, scientists at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas know how widespread the monkeypox virus is, even before the Department of Health.

Scientists can detect COVID-19 in wastewater weeks before any test positive

They were one of the first in the country to study human waste to detect cases of the Omicron version of the coronavirus before any cases were officially reported in the area.

They are doing it again with monkeypox, as the number of cases across the country has topped 14,000.

Human waste can reveal a lot about diseases that exist in a community. Scientists in Las Vegas are using wastewater to detect monkeypox.
(Ashley Soriano/Fox News)

Edwin Oh, an associate professor at the UNLV School of Medicine, said they were the second in the country, after San Francisco, to use a wastewater monitoring program to detect monkeys.

“We’re looking at something like three to 17 days in which a person can be asymptomatic,” Dr. Oh said. “We won’t be able to see lesions on individuals during this time. But when we look at wastewater, we are able to detect that virus there.”

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Dr. Oh heads the UNLV wastewater monitoring programme.

He and his students focus in areas where there may be a lot of people, such as schools, bars, shelters and hotels.

They use an automated machine to collect samples from the sewer.

Then, they go back to the lab for analysis.

“It’s a conversation that we have to have now and not necessarily wait until we have the transition to the 70,000 or seven million level before we can do anything.”

Scientists in Las Vegas collect samples of wastewater to study the presence of monkeypox in the area.
(Ashley Soriano/Fox News)

He expects the amount of the virus to increase in the Las Vegas area next month.

“We had this feeling of déj vu again with COVID-19, well, it has this infectious disease that is circulating,” Dr. Oh said. “We don’t really know too much about it, but by using a program like this, we can at least track where this virus is emerging in different communities.”

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Right now, the CDC reports the most cases in New York with 2,744 and California with 2,663.

Wyoming is the only state with zero reported cases.