Wastewater reveals the true extent of coronavirus outbreaks

Waste water monitoring has been used for decades to assess the success of polio vaccination campaigns. So scientists are trying to use this approach also to measure the total number of infections in a community.

Scientists have discovered traces of coronavirus at several wastewater treatment plants in the Netherlands. More than a dozen research groups around the world have begun analyzing wastewater for the new Coron virus as a way to estimate the total number of infections in a community, given that most people will not be tested yet. This method can also be used to detect coronavirus if it returns to societies, scientists say.
One of the ways researchers can track infectious diseases that are excreted in urine´-or-feces, such as SARS-CoV-2, is to analyze wastewater, the water used that goes through the sewage system to the treatment facility.

A single treatment plant can capture sewage from over a million people. Good monitoring on this scale can provide better estimates of the prevalence of coronavirus than any other test, because wastewater monitoring can explain those who have not been tested and have mild symptoms´-or-only show symptoms of the disease, says the scientist, who discovered SARS Genetic-2 material - viral RNA - at many treatment plants in the Netherlands.

Secret coronavirus infection can lead to new outbreaks, but to determine the size of the infection in the population from wastewater samples, researchers say that groups will need to know how much viral RNA is excreted in the stool, and extrapolate the number of infected people in the population from acid concentrations Viral RNA in wastewater samples.
Researchers will also need to make sure that they look at a representative sample of what the population produces and not just one sample at a time, and that their tests can detect the virus at low levels, says scientists representing the Environmental Health Alliance in Australia, a research center that advises state government On environmental health risks. The group says it is important to monitor wastewater, if possible, not to take resources from individual testing.
Some efforts to monitor the virus have been hampered by the closure of universities and laboratories and the-limit-ed availability of reagents to conduct the same tests as those used in clinics, which are already in short supply.

Infection control measures, such as social distancing, may potentially curb the current epidemic, but the virus can return as soon as these measures are lifted. Therefore, routine monitoring of wastewater can be used as an early warning tool to alert communities of new infection COVID-19. Researchers previously monitored wastewater to detect outbreaks of neurovirovirus, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, poliovirus and measles.

  Studies have shown that SARS-CoV-2 can appear in feces within three days of an infection, which is much closer than the time it takes people to develop severe symptoms enough for them to seek hospital care - up to two weeks - and get the correct diagnosis.
Tracking viral particles in wastewater can give public health officials a head start in deciding whether to introduce measures such as closings. Seven to ten days can make a big difference in the severity of this outbreak.

  Early identification of a community virus may reduce the health and economic damage caused by COVID-19, especially if it returns again next year.

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