Sisante, Kevyn
Stahman, Bryan
Barboro, Colton
Albedaiwi, Anas
Zhou, Ziang

Title:
VirusWatch: An Analysis Tool for Viral Outbreak Detection

Abstract:
Roughly over a year after COVID-19 was first detected, more than 130 million people have been infected and nearly 3 million people have died. Although vaccines are currently being deployed, high-density residential environments continue to be susceptible due to the virus’s high infection rate, leading to population outbreaks. While the major focus of attention is currently on COVID-19, it is important to point out that tracking the spread of infectious viruses has always been an important public health issue. With a lack of resources to carry out continuous universal testing, our client hypothesizes that wastewater-based testing surveillance could be a solution for community monitoring to identify spikes of COVID-19 and other viruses prior to outbreaks occurring, providing public health officials and other policy-makers with information needed to take strategic, mitigating actions. What is needed is a technical solution to host and compare wastewater data between different agencies to potentially detect upcoming outbreaks from deadly viruses. In this project, we have developed a secure web application able to store and analyze data from agencies within a given network. This application will allow users to house their data in a secure area and will be able to instantly provide a variety of graphical summaries that can allow program administrators to monitor surveillance activities so they can rapidly implement intervention strategies. Our client plans to use this application as a potential solution to better monitor deadly viruses, resulting in a product that could potentially save hundreds and thousands of lives.

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