New research: monitoring new coronavirus in sewage helps prevent secondary outbreaks
Xinhua News Agency, Canberra, June 19 (Reporter Yue Dongxing Bai Xu) With the development of the new crown epidemic, researchers from many countries are trying to use sewage-based epidemiological research as a tool to monitor the new crown virus. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization of Australia (CSIRO) issued a communiqué on the 19th that the team involved in the agency found a low-cost, fast and efficient way to monitor the spread of the new coronavirus in the community through sewage, which will help prevent epidemics. The second outbreak.
According to the bulletin, researchers have previously detected new coronavirus ribonucleic acid fragments in untreated sewage from two sewage treatment plants in southeast Queensland. The new study recently published in the United States "Entire Environmental Science" magazine further tested seven methods for extracting new coronavirus information from sewage, and determined the most economical and efficient one of them. Currently, each sample is processed It only takes 15 to 30 minutes.
Studies have shown that by analyzing sewage samples, you can understand the status of new coronavirus infections in the community, regardless of whether someone has already developed symptoms of infection. CSIRO CEO Larry Marshall said that with the gradual relaxation of the epidemic prevention and control measures, this research will help the community avoid the second outbreak of immunization.
Previous studies have shown that global sewage treatment plants can monitor the virus infection of 2.1 billion people, and sewage-based monitoring combined with clinical testing can save billions of dollars. For countries and regions where resources are scarce, sewage-based epidemic research may be the only viable method for effective virus monitoring.
The bulletin pointed out that the results of this study will be shared with the new global cooperation project "COVID-19 Research Collaboration on Wastewater-Based Epidemiology" to help prevent and control the new crown epidemic.