Flushing is the next weapon against the COVID-19, if sewage is scrutinized.

There may be amazing new allies to prevent the outbreak of COVID-19. Your sewage.

Australian Government Recently announced It sewage Tested for SARS-CoV-2, a coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt explained that this would be an important part of the surveillance program needed to prevent future outbreaks in the region.

Researchers Netherlands, France, America And Australia We have been testing sewage for SARS-CoV-2 for over a month, and generally report that the resulting rises and falls reflect the locally reported prevalence of COVID-19 infections in the region. .

This suggests that sewage can actually be used to monitor future spread of the virus. Also, many infections are considered asymptomatic, which may help detect cases that may evade other surveillance programs.

Testing SARS-CoV-2 in sewage does not detect the virus itself, but only a very small fragment (about 0.1%) of the genetic material of the virus called RNA. This means that it is not possible to distinguish whether water contains infectious viral particles or contains only a small portion of the remaining RNA from inactivated or degraded virus.

This type of waste tracking is not new. Already used in Australia Track viruses such as norovirus. And since 2017, sewage tests have been used to reveal Evidence of illegal drug use At the population level. Drug test sewage helped police and other authorities discover What kind of medicine is used To track specific cities and even illegal drug laboratories.

A new aspect is the proposal to use sewer monitoring in major pandemic situations, potentially relying on data to signal some very high stakes decisions. This creates a great responsibility to ensure that the data is collected in a reliable way and that the incidence of positive and negative false positives is well understood.

If the primary decision is based on measured concentrations, then it is essential to understand all the factors behind these measurements.

If the sewage test is positive, what next?

While technically possible, sewage testing from individual facilities is not considered cost effective. However, it can be used to sample wastewater from large buildings, hospitals, and even ships and aircraft.

It is important to understand how to respond to the positive results of SARS-CoV-2. Blocking a building or cruise ship may require isolation of all involved. Alternatively, a positive result can be used as a trigger for an individual test of those who may have contributed to the positive sewage sample. In any case, the personal impact is sufficient to guarantee the high reliability of the sewage test.

On the other hand, how confident are you about sewage that is negative for the SARS-CoV-2 test? Do we properly understand the possibility of overlooking what might have been a good outcome? Will false authorities, governments, or other people be liable for false negatives that miss virus containment opportunities?

It is also necessary to understand the trends observed for increasing and decreasing concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 in sewage. While these may appear to accurately reflect changing patterns of infection, other factors such as rainfall and sampling variability may have a significant effect on measured concentrations.

Of course, direct patient clinical trials are also susceptible to many types of errors, and there are protocols on how we respond. However, sewage tests have a high degree of uncertainty and may increase the number of people directly affected by a response.

Therefore, this problem is much simpler than what might appear in the first reflection. This means it deserves the same level of scrutiny as the government-planned contact tracking mobile phone app, Serious privacy concerns.

Human rights to wash away without harming oneself?

When using a coronavirus test to direct a specific action or response Health authorities Under an urgent order, it raises questions that have not yet been addressed by Australian drug tests.

A pilot system that provides information on the scale that is most useful to public health will pose a challenge to human rights. Human rights to water are recognized under international law, Right to safe and accessible hygiene. If the sewage test is used to support sanctions in the form of blockades, this may undermine our basic right to access sanitation.

This type of test also poses challenges to public water authorities. Information privacy principles.

You may also be wondering where our own “rights” to waste are. In Australia, household waste continues to be the legal owner’s legal property while on private land, but once collected, it belongs to a garbage collection agency (usually a municipality). Is this a good model for excrement?

The Australian legal framework for sewage collection, treatment and management is Keep a constant pace With the development of sewer mining, rainwater reuse and water recycling.

It may seem strange for people to reflect on the ethics of what flushes the toilet. However, given the individual details that sewage may reveal, illnesses and pollutants could lead to drugs and Alcohol use— A national framework is needed to ensure that technology does not go unchecked.

This article has been reissued from conversation Under Creative Commons license. Read Original work.