First proof of the capability of wastewater surveillance for COVID-19 in India through detection of genetic material of SARS-CoV-2

Abstract

We made the first ever successful effort in India to detect the genetic material of SARS-CoV-2 viruses to understand the capability and application of wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) surveillance in India. Sampling was carried out on 8 and 27 May 2020 at the Old Pirana Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP) at Ahmedabad, Gujarat that receives effluent from Civil Hospital treating COVID-19 patients. All three, i.e. ORF1ab, N and S genes of SARS-CoV-2, were found in the influent with no genes detected in effluent collected on 8 and 27 May 2020. Increase in SARS-CoV-2 genetic loading in the wastewater between 8 and 27 May 2020 samples concurred with corresponding increase in the number of active COVID-19 patients in the city. The number of gene copies was comparable to that reported in untreated wastewaters of Australia, China and Turkey and lower than that of the USA, France and Spain. However, temporal changes in SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations need to be substantiated further from the perspectives of daily and short-term changes of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater through long-term monitoring. The study results SARS-CoV-2 will assist concerned authorities and policymakers to formulate and/or upgrade COVID-19 surveillance to have a more explicit picture of the pandemic curve. While infectivity of SARS-CoV-2 through the excreted viral genetic material in the aquatic environment is still being debated, the presence and detection of genes in wastewater systems makes a strong case for the environmental surveillance of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Catching a resurgence: Increase in SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA identified in wastewater 48 hours before COVID-19 clinical tests and 96 hours before hospitalizations

“…other epidemiological metrics has been reported recently by other earlier studies (Chavarria-Miró et al, 2020;Kumar et al, 2020;Peccia et al, 2020). This observation is supported by, and confirms earlier studies (Chavarria-Miró et al, 2020;Kumar et al, 2020;Peccia et al, 2020).…”

RETRACTED: Will the extraction of COVID-19 from wastewater help flatten the curve?

“…The expert and many different scientists accept the fact that when distributing hard work on WBE, community members are essential to acknowledge their labor to move ahead, thereby calling for an assistant in the public health sector ( Daugthon, 2020 ). Nation across the world; Australia ( Ahmed et al, 2020 ), Netherlands ( Medema et al, 2020 ), Italy ( La Rosa et al, 2020a , La Rosa et al, 2020b ; Rimoldi et al, 2020 ), Spain ( Randazzo et al, 2020 ), Francs and Japan ( Wurtzer et al, 2020 ), Germany ( Randazzo et al, 2020 ), USA ( Sherchan et al, 2020 ; Wu et al, 2020a , Wu et al, 2020b ), Ecuador ( Guerrero-Latorre et al, 2020 ) and Indian ( Kumar et al, 2020 ), were the first to use PCR to detect the virus in sewage, which supports the idea, implemented above, thereby using WBE was efficient to disclose the scale of the pandemic SARS-CoV-2 ( Medema et al, 2020 ; Warish et al, 2020; Wurtzer et al, 2020 ).…”

Current understanding of the influence of environmental factors on SARS-CoV-2 transmission, persistence, and infectivity

“…It could also serve as an early warning system for community-wide emergence, subsidence, or elimination of COVID-19 (La Rosa et al 2020 ; Daughton 2020 ). The actual status of the outbreak could be estimated using this approach, as it covers the excrement from both asymptomatic and symptomatic patients, which may otherwise go unnoticed during clinical surveillance (Kumar et al 2020 ). Further, it could help in the identification of the infected individuals in WBE-revealed hotspots (Hart and Halden 2020 ).…”

“…Further, it could help in the identification of the infected individuals in WBE-revealed hotspots (Hart and Halden 2020 ). It is important to highlight that the wastewater/sewage surveillance offers an economical solution for tracking the outbreaks and could help in real-time monitoring and forecasting the emergence of any other pandemic of similar nature; however, its precision and sensitivity is still not clear (Kumar et al 2020 ).…”