SAN DIEGO—A UC San Diego (UCSD) program that has monitored wastewater for the virus that causes COVID-19 for more than a year has expanded to detect the presence of monkeypox, it was announced Aug. 10.
Monitoring and testing for the monkeypox virus is a relatively simple add-on to the current wastewater surveillance program for SARS-CoV-2—viruses that caused the COVID outbreak—said Rob Knight, professor and director of the Center for Microbiome Innovation at UCSD.
“It’s the same process as SARS-CoV-2 qPCR monitoring, except that we have been testing for a different virus,” he said. “Monkeypox is a DNA virus, so it is a bit of a surprise that our process optimized for SARS-CoV-2, which is an RNA virus, works so well.”…