The Importance of Wastewater Monitoring for SARS-CoV-2

SARS-CoV-2, which caused the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic crisis, is the third zoonotic coronavirus after the SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV epidemics. Wastewater and environmental monitoring are promising methods for large-scale surveillance and screening, and may help generate useful data for early warning systems against emerging pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2.

Recent reports have found SARS-CoV-2 circulating in septic tanks, wastewater, and medical wastewater. Wastewater monitoring will enable timely and targeted lockdowns and reopening in specific populated areas where resources are scarce.

Viral concentration methods such as modified skimmed milk agglutination, bag-mediated filtration systems, ultrafiltration with Millipore filtration concentration, and polyethylene glycol precipitation should be used to increase the sensitivity of the detection test.

The world is now conducting economic epidemiological surveillance studies, aiming to establish ideal protocols for detecting and quantifying SARS-CoV-2. Massive RT-PCR testing campaigns are being conducted around the world to track COVID-19, but unfortunately this cannot be considered a reliable surveillance tool for the general population over the long term.

Recent reports have found SARS-CoV-2 in the faeces of COVID-19 patients, and infectious SARS-CoV-2 has also been reported in the faeces of severely ill COVID-19 patients. Did. SARS-CoV-2 can still be detected in stool even when the respiratory tract is absent or negative, and much has been written about the importance of wastewater and its SARS-CoV-2 control. I have a question.

SARS-CoV-2 can cause asymptomatic or subsymptomatic transmission, adding further limitations in determining the extent of actual circulating SARS-CoV-2 in the community There is a possibility.

The degree of environmental contamination and the route of infection are not clearly understood. Ong et al. reported that a patient with upper respiratory tract lesions without clinical symptoms of pneumonia obtained two SARS-CoV-2-positive stool samples without diarrhea symptoms, indicating that SARS-CoV-2 was shed in the stool. , suggesting that it may be the route of infection.

Obtaining more data on the transmission pathways of COVID-19 in sewage and wastewater will therefore help assess potential risks to sewer workers and the general population and help sewage monitoring monitor COVID-19. It is extremely important to assess whether it is considered the ideal way to 19 people in the community.

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Wastewater monitoring, on the other hand, provides a less biased method for estimating the spread of infection in different regions, especially in developing countries with limited resources for monitoring and clinical diagnostics. Currently, detection of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater is mainly based on RT-PCR, which is tedious, expensive, time-consuming and labor-intensive.