Wastewater Based Epidemiology Perspective as a Faster Protocol for Detecting Coronavirus RNA in Human Populations: A Review with Specific Reference to SARS-CoV-2 Virus

Abstract

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has a long history of identifying a variety of viruses from poliovirus to coronaviruses, including novel Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The presence and detection of SARS-CoV-2 in human feces and its passage into the water bodies are significant public health challenges. Hence, the hot issue of WBE of SARS-CoV-2 in the coronavirus respiratory disease (COVID-19) pandemic is a matter of utmost importance (e.g., SARS-CoV-1). The present review discusses the background, state of the art, actual status, and prospects of WBE, as well as the detection and quantification protocols of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater. The SARS-CoV-2 detection studies have been performed in different water matrixes such as influent and effluent of wastewater treatment plants, suburban pumping stations, hospital wastewater, and sewer networks around the globe except for Antarctica. The findings revealed that all WBE studies were in accordance with clinical and epidemiological data, which correlates the presence of SARS-CoV-2 ribonucleic acid (RNA) with the number of new daily positive cases officially reported. This last was confirmed via Reverse Transcriptase-quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-qPCR) testing which unfortunately is not suitable for real-time surveillance. In addition, WBE concept may act as a faster protocol to alert the public health authorities to take administrative orders (possible re-emerging infections) due to the impracticality of testing all citizens in a short time with limited diagnostic facilities. A comprehensive and integrated review covering all steps starting from sampling to molecular detection of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater has been made to guide for the development well-defined and reliable protocols.

National Scale Real-Time Surveillance of Sars-Cov-2 Variants Dynamics by Wastewater Monitoring in Israel

“…Detection of SC-2 in wastewater was reported in numerous studies, including North America [8][9][10][11] , Europe [12][13][14][15][16] , Asia 17,18 and Oceania 19 , with feasibility addressed in the review by Mousazadeh et al 5 .…”

Human health care against COVID-19 via environmental management

“…Similarly, waste water (containing the shredded SARS-CoV-2 viral particles in urine) from the COVID-19 care hospitals or from the self-quarantine centres found to contain the RNA of SARS-CoV-2 (Das et al, 2021;Mousazadeh, Ashoori, et al, 2021). The viral RNA particles have enough potential to increase the COVID-19 infection, as a strong and positive correlation between infection rate and detection of SASR-CoV-2 in waste water has been observed across the world (Mousazadeh, Ashoori, et al, 2021).…”

“…Water pollution is also a bigger issue worldwide (Rath et al, 2021). At present, contamination and detection of mainly the RNA of SARS-CoV-2 in waste water become an issue worldwide (Mousazadeh, Ashoori, et al, 2021). Therefore, decontamination of waste water especially from COVID-19 care hospitals and self-isolation centres needs special attention in relation to public health.…”

Sensing and 3D printing technologies in personalized healthcare for the management of health crises including the COVID-19 outbreak

“…The COVID-19 outbreak has devastated the world starting for the human society to their immediate outsourcings and their work environment [ [78] , [79] , [80] , [81] ]. Under the status of limited or no knowledge on the quick spreading disease, clinicians tried their best for public health management.…”