Successful Application of Wastewater-Based Epidemiology in Prediction and Monitoring of the Second Wave of COVID-19 in India with Fragmented Sewerage Systems- A Case Study of Jaipur (India) (preprint)

ABSTRACT

The present study tracked the city-wide dynamics of severe acute respiratory syndrome-corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA in the wastewater from nine different wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in Jaipur during second wave of COVID-19 out-break in India. A total of 164 samples were collected weekly between February 19th and June 8th, 2021. SARS-CoV-2 was detected in 47.2% (52/110) influent samples and 37% (20/54) effluent samples. The increasing percentage of positive influent samples correlated with the citys increasing active clinical cases during the second wave of COVID-19 in Jaipur. Furthermore, WBE based evidence clearly showed early detection of about 20 days (9/9 samples reported positive on April 20th, 2021) prior to the maximum cases & maximum deaths reported in the city on May 8th, 2021. The present study further observed the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in treated effluents at the time window of maximum active cases in the city even after tertiary disinfection treatments of UV & Chlorine. The average genome concentration in the effluents and removal efficacy of six commonly used treatments; Activated Sludge Treatment + Chlorine disinfection (ASP + Cl2), Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor (MBBR) with Ultraviolet radiations disinfection (MBBR + UV), MBBR + Chlorine (Cl2), Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR) and SBR + Cl2 were compared with removal efficacy of SBR + Cl2 (81.2%)> MBBR + UV (68.8%) > SBR (57.1%) > ASP (50%) > MBBR + Cl2(36.4%). The study observed the trends & prevalence of four genes (E, RdRp, N, and ORF1ab gene) based on two different kits and found that prevalence of N> ORF1ab >RdRp> E gene, suggested that the effective genome concentration should be calculated based on the presence/absence of multiple genes. Hence, it is imperative to say that using a combination of different detection genes (E, N, RdRp & ORF1ab genes) reduce false positives in WBE. Graphical Abstract O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=131 SRC="FIGDIR/small/21263417v1_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (40K) org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@156126corg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1d39404org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@19a9dcdorg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1ee3a0c_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG HighlightsO_LISuccessful application of WBE with prediction of 14-20 days for COVID-19 in Jaipur C_LIO_LIA comparison of SARS-CoV-2 RNA removal efficacy of 9 WWTPs was investigated C_LIO_LISBR showed better performance than MBBR with SARS-CoV-2 RNA removal from wastewater C_LIO_LIPresence of SARS-CoV-2 in effluents even after UV and Chlorine disinfection C_LIO_LIUsing a combination of different detection genes reduce false positives in WBE C_LI