We (students at CCMB and IICT, India) developed the technology to identify the spread of COVID-19 using wastewater/sewage. We were able to show that there is a direct correlation of the amount of viral genomic contents found in sewage to the number of individuals infected in upstream of the samples sewage treatment plant (STP). The results of the study were peer-reviewed and published in Science of the Total Environment journal. The technology is now being used across India and other parts of the world to monitor different kinds of infection causing agents.
News articles: National Herald ; down to earth ; Indian Express ; Hindustan Times.
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to be a major public health concern across the world. While testing, contact tracing, and treatment are being done on a war footing, it is crucial to estimate the scale of infection to predict the rate of infection. A strong data on the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is essential to design appropriate measures to limit the spread of the pandemic.
Community or random screening can be an intense and laborious method to achieve this. However, individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 release traces of the virus particles into domestic wastewater through the fecal-oral route, providing an opportunity to study the level of infection in the community. This methodology was employed earlier in eradicating the polio virus and can now be used as a good indicator of knowing the spread of COVID-19.
In countries with high population densities, like India, testing all individuals is almost impossible. Therefore, exploring methods for community surveillance is necessary. Sewage/wastewater can be a very useful resource to detect and estimate the quantum of COVID-19 spread. The Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in collaboration with the Department of Energy and Environmental Engineering, IICT, has set up the COVID-19 in Sewage (CiS) laboratory for the same in CCMB premises.
The laboratory will employ detection methodologies like RT-qPCR and RTnPCR to detect SARS-CoV-2 in sewage samples. The SOPs for sample collection and processing will be circulated to different labs across India to carry out wastewater-based epidemiological studies. Even though the current project proposed here is COVID-19-centric, it will be a very useful method to monitor various infectious organisms' prevalence in a community, which would act as one of the major indicators of health status of a particular community.
Team: Manupati Hemalatha, Uday Kiran, Santosh Kumar Kuncha, Harishankar Kopperi, C.G. Gokulan, S. Venkata Mohan, Rakesh K. Mishra
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