As the number of coronavirus cases continues to grow, researchers have been using sewage surveillance to understand whether the virus exists in communities across the United States.
The researchers from the University of Arizona use municipal wastewater to determine the incidence of the virus among communities, even if people are asymptomatic.
Environmental biologist and a member of BIO5 Institute, Ian Pepper, said, “Testing the wastewater gives you an idea of the number of cases within a community and if the numbers are increasing or decreasing.”
Pepper is the director of the Water and Energy Sustainable Technology Center (WEST) at the University of Arizona.
“The approach can also be used to help determine if an intervention is working to reduce the transmission of the virus,” he added.
Microbiologist Charles Gerba from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences said, “We will be able to determine if the virus persists in the community even if there are no reported new cases. To me, it’s a key to tracing the spread of a virus.”
Experts have used sewage surveillance programs to study pathogenic viruses for decades, including the one that helped globally eradicate the poliovirus.
Such surveillances helped develop the polio vaccine and vaccination programs, which decreased the transmission dramatically. However, a few countries still have ongoing transmissions, such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria.
Using environmental surveillance programs, experts found that there was a silent transmission of the poliovirus through community wastewater.
So, using the same process, the WEST Center can conduct wastewater surveillance to determine the community transmission of the new coronavirus. The wastewater treatment facility can detect human pathogenic viruses.
Environmental microbiologist Walter Betancourt said, “We have tested for hepatitis A, enteroviruses, and noroviruses. We have approximately 15 different viruses that we regularly test for in sewage and recycled waters for reuse applications.”
Researchers first identified strains of coronaviruses, which are zoonotic viruses, in the mid-1960s. There are seven different coronaviruses, which infect people and cause illness. Of those seven, four are quite common and three, including SARS, MERS, and COVID-19, emerged in the most recent years.
COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, has already affected more than 1,275,00 and killed over 69,500 people so far. In the United States, officials have reported more than 336,850 confirmed cases and 9,620 deaths so far.
The CDC says there remains a great deal to learn about the coronavirus transmission, the severity of the infection, and to what extent it could spread in the United States.
In 2008, a study, conducted by the WEST Center, found that the coronaviruses rapidly die in wastewater.
The researchers will now use the sewage surveillance program to detect the novel coronavirus in wastewater samples collected before and after wastewater treatment. Experts hope that this will help public health officials to better prepare for future epidemics or pandemics.
