Expansion of Environmental Surveillance in the UK
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has unveiled an ambitious expansion of its wastewater and environmental surveillance programme, aimed at bolstering the nation’s capability to identify pathogens that pose significant risks to public health. This new initiative is known as PRISM, which stands for Pathogen Risk Intelligence through Surveillance and Modelling. The programme builds upon a development scheme for wastewater monitoring that was initiated by UKHSA in April 2025.
This prior initiative focused on testing innovative technologies capable of detecting hazardous viruses in wastewater, yielding crucial data and insights that highlighted the potential of environmental surveillance to enhance the UK’s capability to identify and monitor emerging health threats. PRISM aims to take these advancements further by establishing a comprehensive system across England, thereby reinforcing existing surveillance measures and improving the nation’s ability to detect outbreaks.
Investment and Infrastructure Development
Over the next two years, a significant investment of £3 million from the UK Integrated Security Fund (ISF) will facilitate the scaling up of this vital work within UKHSA laboratories. The funding will enable the expansion of surveillance to targeted hospital wastewater sites and high-traffic locations, such as major transport hubs.
PRISM has been designed to be pathogen-agnostic, which means it can potentially identify both known threats and novel variants, as well as previously undetected pathogens, from a single sample. This innovative approach contrasts with existing targeted methods, like the long-established wastewater surveillance system for polio in the UK. PRISM’s ‘sample once, test many’ strategy allows for the simultaneous support of public health surveillance, biosecurity, and antimicrobial resistance monitoring, thus offering significantly enhanced value from England’s surveillance investments.
Enhancing Biosecurity and Tracking Seasonal Illnesses
While diseases such as Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, Ebola, Marburg, and Lassa fever have yet to emerge in the UK, the new detection technology associated with PRISM has the capability to identify these and other hazardous pathogens at an early stage. This enhancement will strengthen the UK’s biosecurity and pandemic preparedness.
Additionally, PRISM will monitor seasonal illnesses that exert considerable pressure on the National Health Service (NHS) during the winter months. During its initial development phase, the programme successfully tracked norovirus, commonly known as the winter vomiting bug, in wastewater, even distinguishing between various strains circulating throughout the country, with the aid of artificial intelligence tools.
Addressing Antimicrobial Resistance Challenges
The programme is also focused on fortifying the UK’s response to antimicrobial resistance (AMR), recognised as one of the most significant long-term threats to public health. By conducting multiple tests on the same environmental sample, UKHSA scientists will be able to monitor drug-resistant bacteria and fungi, including hypervirulent strains of Klebsiella pneumoniae and Candida auris. This will contribute to a clearer nationwide understanding of how and where resistance is proliferating.
Professor Robin May, Chief Scientific Officer at UKHSA, emphasised the necessity for ongoing innovation in response to the growing diversity of biological threats. He described PRISM as a pivotal step towards establishing a robust early warning system that will enable swift responses to protect the public before health crises materialise in hospitals and communities.
Future Prospects for Public Health Surveillance
Reflecting on the journey that led to the launch of PRISM, Professor May noted that the initiative arose from a desire to explore how new technologies could enhance the detection of dangerous pathogens in wastewater and improve preparedness for future pandemics. With the establishment of this extensive environmental surveillance programme, the UKHSA is now poised to significantly strengthen its pathogen detection capabilities across the nation.
Although viruses such as Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever and Ebola are currently absent from the UK, the enhanced surveillance capabilities will better equip the country to identify such threats early should they ever enter. Furthermore, this powerful surveillance system is already being utilised to monitor more common pathogens like norovirus, thus providing a clearer understanding of the dynamics of critical pathogens that impact the NHS during winter months.
The UKHSA’s wastewater monitoring project for pathogen detection is part of a broader set of biosecurity initiatives funded through the UK Integrated Security Fund (UKISF) Biosecurity Portfolio, which the Cabinet Office launched earlier this year.