CDC Wastewater Surveillance System Operating on Remaining COVID-Era Funds

Funding for the National Wastewater Surveillance System is slated to run dry unless Congress boosts funding for the infectious disease prevention program as part of next year’s budget appropriation, Washington Examiner reported. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Wastewater Surveillance System was initially created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was launched in September 2020 by the CDC to connect independent state and local wastewater treatment plants into a network for infectious disease surveillance.

The NWSS has since become a central part of protecting the public from measles, bird flu, and other infectious disease outbreaks. Between 2021 and 2024, the federal government invested more than $500 million in COVID-19 relief spending for the NWSS, but Congress has not yet allocated dedicated, non-emergency funding for the program.

A senior CDC official told the Washington Examiner that the Department of Health and Human Services is utilizing unspent COVID-era funds from prior years to keep the NWSS operational.

The operating budget for NWSS is thinning. “Wastewater surveillance has become a critical part of preventing infectious disease outbreaks,” the senior CDC official said. “In many cases it actually allows to stop an early outbreak.

CDC data indicate wastewater surveillance has been an integral part of curbing and controlling measles outbreaks. The United States had record-breaking numbers of measles infections in 2025, with nearly 2,300 cases and three deaths. As of mid-May 2026, there have been nearly 1,800 measles cases in the United States.

Measles can spread quickly in the days before and after a person develops symptoms, so a positive test from sewage allows public health officials time to prepare for measles cases and send additional resources to the affected area. New Mexico relied upon wastewater testing to help curb recent measles outbreaks.

The RAND Corporation estimated in 2025 that the NWSS could generate a net benefit of nearly $1,500 per person in the first year of the next pandemic on the scale of COVID-19. President Donald Trump’s budget request submitted to Congress in April 2026 requested more than $111 billion in discretionary budget authority for HHS for fiscal 2027. 5% decrease from the enacted level in 2026.

In March 2026, Sens. Tim Scott (R-SC) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) introduced the PREDICT Act. The legislation would direct the CDC to award grants to state and local jurisdictions to improve wastewater monitoring activities.

The PREDICT Act would require the CDC to produce a national strategic plan outlining how it will use surveillance as an early-warning system to detect emerging health threats. It would also require the CDC to improve data transparency by creating an interactive dashboard for information sharing by state and local public health officials. Sens.

Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Ted Budd (R-NC), Roger Wicker (R-MS), and Angus King (I-ME) have signed onto the PREDICT Act. When Scott asked HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last month about the bill, Kennedy said it was personally important to him.

“It’s something that’s very personally important to me to have more wastewater surveillance,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said. Several public health organizations including the American Society for Microbiology and the Infectious Diseases Society of America urged the House and Senate appropriations committees in April 2026 to provide at least $120 million to continue the NWSS.

The American Jail Association, the American Public Health Association, the Big Cities Health Coalition, and the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists signed the funding request letter. “Data collected through NWSS provides timely, community-level insight into disease trends, allowing public health officials to detect increases or declines in infection earlier than traditional clinical surveillance,” the letter from the American Society for Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Society of America stated.