Wastewater testing has been used for decades to detect polio. Recently, it proved to be crucial for broadening COVID surveillance and filling an important gap related to challenges around human testing and diagnosis. Our wastewater epidemiology uses the same methods and solutions for measuring COVID in wastewater as an early warning and monitoring tool for many other viral disease outbreaks.
During infection, viruses multiply in a host. Often, even before symptoms are noticeable, many viral particles have already been expelled via urine, feces, saliva, or washed from the skin during showering. These viral particles end up in the sewer systems and, despite being heavily diluted, can be detected by DNA tests. As a result, wastewater systems can provide a wealth of information about human health and be used as an early warning system to drive policy without having to wait for clinical cases.
All we need is a water sample collected at a specific site in the wastewater network. In our laboratory, we perform multiple steps to concentrate the sample and have a tailored workflow to extract the viral genetic material. Next, we run qPCR analysis to measure the total amount of DNA or RNA associated with the virus. We may also deploy other techniques, like Next Generation Sequencing to identify viral mutations. On a case-by-case basis, we assess whether certain normalization steps can be made to correct measured concentrations for factors like population density, human fecal matter content, sampling location, rainfall inflow, and more.
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