Tracking virus presence in sewage to help monitor pandemic: researchers
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The detection of the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in sewage samples has raised the opportunity of utilizing environmental water surveillance to monitor virus exercise in contaminated areas, researchers have stated.
Similar environmental surveillance for the polio virus has performed a essential position in the eradication of untamed polio virus globally.
In their paper titled “SARS-CoV-2 detection in sewage samples: Standardization of method & preliminary observations”, revealed lately in the Indian Journal of Medical Research, researchers declare to have undertaken the research to standardise the methodology for detection of SARS-CoV-2 from sewage and discover the feasibility of building supplementary surveillance for COVID-19.
Researchers have now urged that SARS-CoV-2 detection in waste waters could possibly be used to perceive the epidemiology of COVID-19.
“Decreasing concentration or absence of virus at previously SARS-CoV-2-positive sewage sampling sites may indicate successful implementation of COVID-19 control strategies and it may provide evidence of the presence or absence of SARS-CoV-2-infected populations and confirmation of COVID-19-free zones,” the research famous.
Intestinal an infection
The research was performed by ICMR-National Institute of Virology, (Mumbai Unit) and Division of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases, ICMR, Delhi, and stated although COVID spreads primarily through the droplets of respiratory secretions, it was additionally detected in stool samples of sufferers, indicating energetic an infection of the gastrointestinal tract.
For the research, sewage samples have been collected from six websites in Mumbai utilizing the seize pattern technique and processed utilizing polyethylene glycol (PEG)-dextran section separation technique for virus focus. Real-time RT-PCR assay was used to detect the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA.
“A total of 20 sewage samples collected from six different wards in Mumbai city, before the spread of SARS-CoV-2 infections and during May 11-22, 2020, were processed using the phase separation method. The WHO two-phase PEG-dextran method was modified during standardization. SARS-CoV-2 was found to concentrate in the middle phase only. All samples collected before March 16, 2020 were SARS-CoV-2 negative. Viral RNA was detected in sewage samples collected during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in all the six wards,” the research stated.
The research concluded that PEG-dextran section separation technique was successfully used to focus SARS-CoV-2 from home waste waters to detection ranges. It can be possible to provoke sewage surveillance for the virus to generate knowledge concerning the viral transmission in numerous epidemiologic settings.
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