DPI Receives $2.36M Disease-Control Contract from CDPH

Lawndale News Chicago's Bilingual Newspaper - Health

The Discovery Partners Institute (DPI), part of the University of Illinois System, announced that it is expanding its wastewater surveillance in Chicago beyond the virus that causes COVID-19 under a Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) agreement that extends their disease-control efforts into mid-2024. While continuing to measure the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in city neighborhoods, the DPI-led scientific team is now also analyzing wastewater for evidence of influenza A and B. The new agreement permits this search to grow to include other pathogens, such as the polio or monkeypox viruses, should they emerge as public health concerns. The $2.36 million contract seamlessly maintains the pioneering disease tracking that DPI and its partners at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University began in Chicago in October 2021 under the initial $2.14 million contract with CDPH. With the increase of at-home COVID-19 testing, wastewater surveillance has become essential in monitoring the level of SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, at the community level. 

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