Sewage analysis for the collective detection of corona virus

I thought about the Mahdi

Within weeks of being on top of the global scene, the emerging Coronavirus has been able to cordon off the world with disease, mortality and economic paralysis, as well as analyzes related to it have become a major global challenge for health authorities and the medical community.

Sewage

As part of the international race to tackle the Corona virus, Arizona State University has announced the development of a new approach to monitoring the new coronavirus. The method is known as wastewater-based epidemiology.

This approach relies on extracting and analyzing wastewater samples to search for vital evidence about human health, and thus can determine levels of coronavirus infection at the local and global level.

The results of the study were published in the journal Science of the Total Environment on April 22.

The researchers reviewed the indicators necessary to detect the Covid-19 virus in wastewater, and highlighted the economic advantages of the new approach in terms of saving time and money, as it is more manageable compared to traditional disease testing and epidemiological surveillance.

The team tested wastewater samples in the Tempe area, Arizona, and found that applying this approach in the United States would contribute to a screening of approximately 70% of the population, by monitoring the nation's wastewater treatment plants, which totaled 15,014. , At an estimated cost of $ 225,000 for chemical reagents.

Track deadly danger

The technology of "wastewater-based epidemiology" is highly sensitive, with the ability to detect the injury of one individual within a population of between one hundred and two million people.

To achieve this, wastewater samples are examined for DNA presence.

The RNA of the coronavirus is transcribed into complementary DNA (CDNA) by the reverse transcription enzyme, and then the resulting DNA is amplified to enhance the chance of detecting the presence of the virus.

Thus an entire community can be monitored simultaneously, bearing in mind that samples are taken from areas close to the epidemic hotspots, and taking into account the temperature of the wastewater.

In addition, an accurate calibration is necessary to ensure the accuracy of the data that is highly sensitive to the main variables, including seasonal temperature and average sewage life time in the sewerage, degradation rates for vital signs, societal demography (demography), and the rate of water use per Person.

Advantages of the new scan

Data from Europe and North America indicate that every person with corona will release millions - if not billions - from the viral genome to wastewater daily, which is measured by approximately 0.15 to 141.5 million viral genomes per liter of wastewater generated.

In addition to reducing transmission and deaths resulting from corona infection, the results of a wastewater screening provide other important societal benefits, the most important of which is the ability to identify active hotspots for the spread of the virus, enabling us to better direct resources to protect the residents of those areas by imposing social measures of separation.

This is in parallel with easing curfews in virus-free areas, which will alleviate economic and social turmoil.

The research team created the OneWaterOneHealth project, a non-profit project of Arizona State University, that runs a Covid-19 test for those who cannot afford it in the current period.