The global spread of SARS-CoV-2 has continued to be a serious concern after WHO declared the virus to be the causative agent of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) a global pandemic. Monitoring of wastewater is a useful tool for assessing community prevalence given that fecal shedding of SARS-CoV-2 occurs in high concentrations by infected individuals, regardless of whether they are asymptomatic or symptomatic. Using tools that are part of wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) approach, combined with molecular analyses, wastewater monitoring becomes a key piece of information used to assess trends and quantify the scale and dynamics of COVID-19 infection in a specific community, municipality, or area of service. This study investigates a six-month long SARS-CoV-2 RNA quantification in influent wastewater from four municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) serving the Charlotte region of North Carolina (NC) using both RT-qPCR and RT-ddPCR platforms. Influent wastewater was analyzed for the nucleocapsid (N) genes N1 and N2. Both RT-qPCR and RT-ddPCR performed well for detection and quantification of SARS-CoV-2 using the N1 target, while for the N2 target RT-ddPCR was more sensitive. SARS-CoV-2 concentration ranged from 10 3 to 10 5 copies/L for all four plants. Both RT-qPCR and RT-ddPCR showed a significant positive correlation between SARS-CoV-2 concentrations and the 7-day rolling average of clinically reported COVID-19 cases when lagging 5 to 12 days (ρ = 0.52–0.92, p < 0.001–0.02). A major finding of this study is that RT-qPCR and RT-ddPCR generated SARS-CoV-2 data were positively correlated (ρ = 0.569, p < 0.0001) and can be successfully used to monitor SAR-COV-2 signals across the WWTPs of different sizes and metropolitan service functions without significant anomalies.
Phytoremediation is a cost effective and eco-friendly method for cleanup of contaminated soil. This study focused on the assessment of phytoremediation potential of Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum) and Indian mastered (Brassica juncea) yielding in tannery sludge. Initial characterization of tannery sludge showed a high concentration of chromium, lead, copper and zinc which were 6845.5±50.2, 73±2.5, 93±1.5 and 29±2.5 mg/kg, respectively. Both seeds of these plants were sown on tannery sludge kept in baskets and harvested after 8 and 12 weeks of plantation. Analysis indicated that both Napier grass and Indian mustard accumulated heavy metals in the order of Cr>Zn>Cu>Pb at different parts of these plants. Transfer factor (TF) for both plants were greater than 1 for Cu, Zn, Pb though it was less than 1 for Cr. Indian mustard accumulated highest concentration of Cr, Cu, and Pb whereas Napier grass showed highest Zn uptake and good Cr and Cu accumulation capacity. The uptake rate of Cr increased in Napier grass with the increase of plant age. Moreover, Napier grass is one of the rapid yielding tropical grasses and can retain for a longer period than Indian mustard for that attribute, it may accumulate more heavy metals than Indian mustard within its life span. Both of these plants can be used for remediating heavy metals from contaminated tannery sludge. Journal of Engineering Science 12(1), 2021, 35-41
Wastewater surveillance is a powerful tool for monitoring the prevalence of infectious disease in urban populations, with predictive value for upcoming increases in cases and hospitalizations. The approach primarily used in disease surveillance has been to measure the number of viral copies detected in wastewater for a study area of known population, and systems for wastewater monitoring have been put in place worldwide during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. However, the potential to measure other biomarkers such as proteins and metabolites in wastewater has not been fully explored. Here we develop an approach to determine antibody optical density and titer measurements from wastewater. We measured abundance of anti-SARS-CoV-2 spike IgG and IgA from typical fresh samples of community wastewater, and from a collection of frozen samples dating from 2020-22. The assay described can be performed with readily available commercial reagents, at a moderate per-sample cost, facilitating non-invasive population level immune surveillance. Our findings demonstrate the feasibility of indirect serological surveillance through wastewater for population level monitoring, and the protocol described will enable the collection of larger data sets and development of models that can be leveraged to anticipate public health needs.
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