The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently posted for public consultation a draft of a Preferred Pathway Characteristics (PPC) document for wastewater and environmental surveillance (WES) for one or more pathogens of epidemic and pandemic potential.

To guide product developers, this draft PPC synthesises inputs from experts and stakeholders, including Asia PGI, into a roadmap aligned with global health priorities and highlights key design considerations required to scale multi-pathogen WES. Objectives include "harmonising methodologies, ensuring affordability and accessibility, enhancing sensitivity and specificity, enabling multi-pathogen compatibility, streamlining workflows, and improving data analysis and sharing."

As part of the WHO process, this public consultation aims to gather consensus and foster the development of scalable, cost-effective, and context-appropriate WES solutions that strengthen global disease surveillance capabilities, especially in low- and middle-income countries.

Please find the link to the draft PPC and public consultation here: https://www.who.int/news-room/articles-detail/public-consultation-on-draft-version-of-the-preferred-pathway-characteristics-for-optimizing-wastewater-and-environmental-surveillance-for-one-or-more-pathogens-of-epidemic-and-pandemic-potential

We would be grateful if you could provide your feedback before 2 October 2026 through this form (also found at the link above).