Wastewater and Environmental Surveillance: Challenges and strategies in the Philippines

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Wastewater and Environmental Surveillance: Challenges and strategies in the Philippines

Webinar: “Implementing wastewater and environmental surveillance in an archipelagic rural setting in the Philippines”

On 26 March 2025, the Asia Pathogen Genomics Initiative (Asia PGI) held its second webinar on wastewater and environmental surveillance (WES). The session featured Dr. Lea Necitas G. Apostol, Chief Science Research Specialist at the Department of Virology of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM), under the Philippines Department of Health. Dr. Apostol shared her insights and strategies on establishing a WES network in the Philippines in a talk titled “Implementing wastewater and environmental surveillance in an archipelagic rural setting in the Philippines.”

Dr. Apostol addressed challenges and strategies for establishing a sustainable WES network across the Philippine archipelago, leveraging use cases from the Global Polio Eradication Initiative programme and the Covid-19 pandemic. The discussion covered essential aspects such as site selection criteria, sampling methods, laboratory processes and the crucial role of stakeholder engagement and financial commitment as well as active community participation.

Key success factors and takeaways include:

Conducting thorough planning, including risk assessments and ensuring prerequisites are met, before initiating WES activities

Adopting inclusive, culturally-sensitive and participatory approaches to build trust

Implementing a phased, multisectoral strategy

Engaging key stakeholders from planning through to implementation

Maximising the WES network for the detection of other pathogens of public health interest

As highlighted by Dr. Apostol, WES can be a complementary tool to existing surveillance methods and an innovative tool for outbreak investigation. In 2023, Dr. Apostol and her colleagues’ efforts were recognised when the WHO designated the National Polio Reference Laboratory for Polio and other Enteroviruses of the RITM as an Inter-country Reference Laboratory for Environmental Surveillance in the Western Pacific Region.

To learn more, access the webinar recording here, and slides and post-event Q&A below.

Implementing Wastewater and Environmental Surveillance in an Archipelagic Rural Setting in the Philippines - Slides

Implementing Wastewater and Environmental Surveillance in an Archipelagic Rural Setting in the Philippines - Post-event Q&A

Wastewater and Environmental Surveillance: Challenges and strategies in the Philippines

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