Scientists from Bath have used an innovative technique to analyse waste water from over 40 European cities to better understand illicit drug use. Lead investigator, Dr Barbara Kasprzyk-Horden, explained: “Analysing sewage for estimating drug use has huge potential for monitoring the health of populations. Traditional epidemiological methods rely on surveys, which are time consuming, expensive and can be inaccurate due to self-reporting bias. “However waste water profiling is non-intrusive and can show changes in local populations in real time, with a large sample size and can be used alongside existing epidemiology methods to give important information on drug use and markets across Europe. “This tool is exciting because it could also be used to identify the use of new dangerous ‘legal highs’ that have not yet been banned. “It also has potential to be used to monitor biomarkers for diseases such as cancer or trace the spread of flu epidemics in real time and could be a really powerful tool for improving public health.” Find out more about the project bath.ac.uk/research/news/2014/05/28/tracking-drug-use-through-sewage/
Posted on: Wed, 28 May 2014 08:06:30 +0000
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