Predicting Influenza Abundance in Wastewater Metagenomic Sequencing Data

By Jeff Kaufman 🔸 @ 2024-09-23T17:27 (+26)

This is a linkpost to https://naobservatory.org/blog/predicting-influenza-abundance

This is a crosspost, probably from LessWrong. Try viewing it there.

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SummaryBot @ 2024-09-24T14:20 (+1)

Executive summary: Analysis of new wastewater sequencing data from the 2023-2024 flu season provides estimates of influenza detection sensitivity, showing lower relative abundance than previously estimated for SARS-CoV-2.

Key points:

  1. New data from Missouri and California allows estimation of influenza A and B detection in wastewater during an active flu season.
  2. Relative abundance of influenza in wastewater correlates with positive test rates, but with significant variability.
  3. Estimated RAi(1%) for influenza A and B is lower than previous SARS-CoV-2 estimates, varying by sequencing protocol and location.
  4. Findings will be used to update a metagenomic biosurveillance simulator, likely resulting in higher variance and less optimistic projections.
  5. Further sequencing in the 2024-2025 season is expected to reduce uncertainty in these estimates.

 

 

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