San Francisco International Airport (SFO) has become the first U.S. airport to launch a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) program to continuously monitor wastewater sample for variants of SARS-CoV2.
SFO is working with the CDC and Concentric by Ginkgo, a division of Boston-based Ginkgo Bioworks, on the program that regularly samples combines wastewater from international arriving flights to be sent to a laboratory for testing.
“We are proud to be the first airport to launch this pilot program with CDC,” said Ivar Satero, SFO director. “This latest effort represents the most targeted approach to identify, monitor, an ultimately mitigate COVID-19 variants.”
This latest program will be limited to wastewater samples from the SFO International Terminal.
“Biology doesn’t respect borders, and airports and other ports of entry are critical nodes for monitoring the spread of pathogens,” said Matt McKnight, general manager of biosecurity at Ginkgo Bioworks. “We are proud to partner with SFO on developing cutting-edge biosecurity technology to support public health.”
