Environmental Surveillance for polio entails regular collection of sewage or wastewater.
The rationale for Environmental Surveillance is the fact that polio is a faeco-oral disease, and infected people can shed the virus in their faeces for weeks.
The World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa works with African countries to ensure optimal quality of samples collected, so that laboratories can ultimately isolate poliovirus in the sample, if present.
In this training module, you will learn the steps for high quality sample collection.