Calibration of Methods for SARS-CoV-2 Environmental Surveillance: A Case Study from Northwest Tuscany.
Int J Environ Res Public Health
; 19(24)2022 12 09.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-2155106
ABSTRACT
The current pandemic has provided an opportunity to test wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) as a complementary method to SARS-CoV-2 monitoring in the community. However, WBE infection estimates can be affected by uncertainty factors, such as heterogeneity in analytical procedure, wastewater volume, and population size. In this paper, raw sewage SARS-CoV-2 samples were collected from four wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in Tuscany (Northwest Italy) between February and December 2021. During the surveillance period, viral concentration was based on polyethylene glycol (PEG), but its precipitation method was modified from biphasic separation to centrifugation. Therefore, in parallel, the recovery efficiency of each method was evaluated at lab-scale, using two spiking viruses (human coronavirus 229E and mengovirus vMC0). SARS-CoV-2 genome was found in 80 (46.5%) of the 172 examined samples. Lab-scale experiments revealed that PEG precipitation using centrifugation had the best recovery efficiency (up to 30%). Viral SARS-CoV-2 load obtained from sewage data, adjusted by analytical method and normalized by population of each WWTP, showed a good association with the clinical data in the study area. This study highlights that environmental surveillance data need to be carefully analyzed before their use in the WBE, also considering the sensibility of the analytical methods.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
SARS-CoV-2
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Case report
/
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Ijerph192416588
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