The EU-WISH (EU-Wastewater Integrated Surveillance for Public Health) 2026 International Workshop and Consortium Meeting was held from 6-8 October 2026 in Vienna, Austria, hosted by the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety. The event convened around 100 consortium members and key international stakeholders - including delegates from the European Commission’s Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (DG HERA) and Asia PGI - to discuss the future of wastewater and environmental surveillance for global health security.
Bridging European and Asian wastewater surveillance initiatives
EU-WISH is a Joint Action co-funded under the European Union’s EU4Health Programme, bringing together 62 participating organizations across 26 European countries to strengthen national and regional capabilities in wastewater surveillance.
The workshop provided a timely opportunity for knowledge exchange following Asia PGI’s recent launch of the ADWANCE-Asia programme in June 2026. Also co-funded by the EU4Health Programme, ADWANCE-Asia aims to support Asian nations in institutionalising sustainable, fit-for-purpose wastewater and environmental surveillance (WES) systems.
Key takeaways for regional WES and public health preparedness
Key insights from the workshop included:
- Funding and sustainability: Coordinated, sustainable funding models across public health institutions are required to successfully navigate constraints across the global funding landscape.
- Integrated global health surveillance: To effectively manage emerging pathogens, endemic diseases, and antimicrobial resistance (AMR), surveillance systems must be integrated under clear institutional mandates, data-ownership and sharing protocols, and formalised roles and responsibilities.
- Data-driven public health actions: Participants shared how data from WES initiatives are currently being utilised in public health decision-making, primarily in the context of COVID-19. While various countries reported using WES data to forecast trends and inform health services, establishing predefined pathways from data signals to public health policy and response remains crucial for demonstrating the value of WES.
- Building trust and acceptance: Long-term adoption of WES relies on transparency regarding both its strengths and limitations, alongside tailored communication strategies for authorities, institutions, and the broader scientific community. Achieving acceptance from relevant stakeholders requires years of effort but is essential for successful integration.
- Long-term outlook: Clear objectives, standardised practices, enhanced data-sharing mechanisms, documented case studies, and continuous collaboration are needed to embed WES into broader public health systems. Factors like sustainability, operational capacity, and governance need to be addressed in order to achieve the goal of developing integrated WES systems that can provide real-time updates on public health threats and inform coordinated responses from EU member states.