Interactive SARS-CoV-2 dashboard for real-time geospatial visualisation of sewage and clinical surveillance data from Dhaka, Bangladesh: a tool for public health situational awareness

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Mami Taniuchi, University of Virginia; Isoabel M. Blake, Imperial College London; Erin G. Wettstone, University of Virginia; Md Ohedul Islam, affiliation; Lauren Hughlett, University of Virginia; Claire Reagen, University of Virginia; Tahmina Shirin, Disease Control and Research; Mahbubur Rahman, Disease Control and Research; Kawsar Hosan, Jahangirnagar University; Md Raihanul Hoque, a2i; Stephanie A. Brennhofer, University of Virginia; Elizabeth Rogawski McQuade, Emory University; Yoann Mira, Novel-T; Lukas von Tobel, Novel-T; Rashidul Haque, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research Bangladesh
• Language: English
• Date: 2023
• Publisher: BMJ
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2023.
• License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): https://doi.org/10.1136%2Fbmjgh-2023-012921
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: BMJ Global Health
• Volume: 8
• Issue: 8
• Start Page: e012921
• Grant/Funding Information: This study was funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (INV-022699 and OPP1193124 to MT); IMB acknowledges funding from the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis (reference MR/R015600/1), jointly funded by the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), under the MRC/FCDO Concordat agreement and is also part of the EDCTP2 programme supported by the European Union.
• Keywords: SARS; Public Health; COVID-19; Epidemiology
• Research Categories: Health Sciences, Public Health; Health Sciences, Epidemiology

Abstract

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, many dashboards were created to visualise clinical case incidence. Other dashboards have displayed SARS-CoV-2 sewage data, largely from countries with formal sewage networks. However, very few dashboards from low-income and lower-middle-income countries integrated both clinical and sewage data sets. We created a dashboard to track in real-time both COVID-19 clinical cases and the level of SARS-CoV-2 virus in sewage in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The development of this dashboard was a collaborative iterative process with Bangladesh public health stakeholders to include specific features to address their needs. The final dashboard product provides spatiotemporal visualisations of COVID-19 cases and SARS-CoV-2 viral load at 51 sewage collection sites in 21 wards in Dhaka since 24 March 2020. Our dashboard was updated weekly for the Bangladesh COVID-19 national task force to provide supplemental data for public health stakeholders making public policy decisions on mitigation efforts. Here, we highlight the importance of working closely with public health stakeholders to create a COVID-19 dashboard for public health impact. In the future, the dashboard can be expanded to track trends of other infectious diseases as sewage surveillance is increased for other pathogens.