Application of neighborhood-scale wastewater-based epidemiology in low COVID-19 incidence situations.

Autor: Oh C; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, United States. Electronic address: co14@illinois.edu., Zhou A; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, United States., O'Brien K; School of Integrative Biology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, United States., Jamal Y; Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, United States., Wennerdahl H; Illinois State Water Survey, Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, United States., Schmidt AR; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, United States., Shisler JL; Department of Microbiology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, United States., Jutla A; Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, United States., Schmidt AR 4th; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, United States., Keefer L; Illinois State Water Survey, Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, United States., Brown WM; Department of Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, United States., Nguyen TH; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, United States; Institute of Genomic Biology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, United States.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: The Science of the total environment [Sci Total Environ] 2022 Dec 15; Vol. 852, pp. 158448. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Sep 02.
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.158448
Abstrakt: Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE), an emerging approach for community-wide COVID-19 surveillance, was primarily characterized at large sewersheds such as wastewater treatment plants serving a large population. Although informed public health measures can be better implemented for a small population, WBE for neighborhood-scale sewersheds is less studied and not fully understood. This study applied WBE to seven neighborhood-scale sewersheds (average population of 1471) from January to November 2021. Community testing data showed an average of 0.004 % incidence rate in these sewersheds (97 % of monitoring periods reported two or fewer daily infections). In 92 % of sewage samples, SARS-CoV-2 N gene fragments were below the limit of quantification. We statistically determined 10 -2.6 as the threshold of the SARS-CoV-2 N gene concentration normalized to pepper mild mottle virus (N/PMMOV) to alert high COVID-19 incidence rate in the studied sewershed. This threshold of N/PMMOV identified neighborhood-scale outbreaks (COVID-19 incidence rate higher than 0.2 %) with 82 % sensitivity and 51 % specificity. Importantly, neighborhood-scale WBE can discern local outbreaks that would not otherwise be identified by city-scale WBE. Our findings suggest that neighborhood-scale WBE is an effective community-wide disease surveillance tool when COVID-19 incidence is maintained at a low level.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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