As bird flu concerns grow, Alberta researchers hope to launch wastewater monitoring for livestock

Alberta researchers are working to expand wastewater surveillance into the agriculture sector in an effort to identify early warning signs and protect against potential threats, including H5N1 avian influenza.

Scientists regularly monitor for viruses,including SARS-CoV-2, among humans by sampling wastewater in Alberta municipalities.

They've developed tests for other pathogens, including H5N1.

The next goal is to launch a pilot project that would monitor waste from Alberta livestock for the virus and expand urban wastewater surveillance to regularly test for it as well.

"The world has witnessed dozens of influenza pandemics. Inevitably they come from animal populations, crossing over," said Dr. Michael Parkins, a University of Calgary infectious disease physician and co-lead of the pan-Alberta wastewater network.

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"[With] H5N1 we've been worried about an impending pandemic threat for some time. It could happen any day, and being prepared is really important." 

H5N1, which causes high rates of death in wild and domestic bird populations, has sparked concern after being discovered in U.S. dairy cattle and infecting a small number of people in North America, including a B.C. teenager who was hospitalized late last year. The United States announced its first human death related to H5N1 this week.

Testing for bird flu on Canadian farms is currently limited to individual animals, according to Parkins.

"The ability to screen, therefore, is limited to merely the tip of the iceberg — the sickest animals in lots that we think are involved — and we can't actually assess the more general or wide population," he said.

According to Parkins, testing wastewater on farms, feedlots and other sites would allow researchers to monitor wider livestock populations, identify transmission patterns and track changes in the virus that could pose a greater threat to humans.

Researchers from the University of Calgary, the University of Lethbridge, the University of Alberta and Athabasca University are involved in the pilot, which would take runoff and catchment samples and test for a variety of pathogens, including H5N1.

Tim McAllister, a  Lethbridge-based research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, said they hope to monitor waste streams from 30 to 50 farms across the dairy, beef, swine and poultry sectors.

 "H5N1 is the one we're focusing on now, but once you've got that genetic material … you could look at other emerging diseases as well," he said.

The team has submitted proposals to funding agencies in an effort to launch the pilot project. If approved, Parkins said they'd have funding to monitor municipal water supplies for avian influenza once a week, and more often if necessary.

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In addition to bird flu, the project would look at other viruses and bacteria, with a key focus on studying antimicrobial resistance, which the World Health Organization has identified as a top public health concern. It occurs when bacteria, viruses and other pathogens change over time, rendering medicines, designed to fight them, less effective.

"The more you can learn about the potential transmission of these pathogens, the more informed you can be in any kind of mitigation strategies used to try to prevent it. So that's a really big factor," said McAllister.

"Also the earlier that you can identify them and develop mitigation strategies so that you can contain them and prevent them from spreading to the broader population — that's another big issue as well."

It's all part of a larger move to adopt wastewater surveillance as a public health tool.

Since Alberta researchers started looking for the virus that causes COVID-19 in municipal wastewater, they've gone on to monitor for RSV and influenza A and B.

"That's the tip of the iceberg and we want to move on," said Parkins.

He said human wastewater testing can be adapted quickly to look for a range of infections, including measles, shiga toxin-producing E.coli (linked to a 2023 daycare outbreak in Calgary) and shigella (linked to outbreaks in Calgary's homeless population).

They've recently received grants to expand that work. And they're waiting to find out if their funding applications, which would allow the H5N1-related testing to proceed, have been approved.

If they get the green light, researchers hope to begin their work in the agriculture sector by spring.