Anthropogenic Sewage Water Circuit as Vector for SARS-CoV-2 Viral ARN Transport and Public Health Assessment, Monitoring and Forecasting—Sibiu Metropolitan Area (Transylvania/Romania) Study Case

Ioana Boeraș, Angela Curtean-Bănăduc, Doru Bănăduc () and Gabriela Cioca
Additional contact information
Ioana Boeraș: Applied Ecology Research Center, Faculty of Sciences, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, 550012 Sibiu, Romania
Angela Curtean-Bănăduc: Applied Ecology Research Center, Faculty of Sciences, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, 550012 Sibiu, Romania
Doru Bănăduc: Applied Ecology Research Center, Faculty of Sciences, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, 550012 Sibiu, Romania
Gabriela Cioca: Preclinical Department, Faculty of Medicine, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, 550169 Sibiu, Romania

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 18, 1-12

Abstract: Water is a risk factor for epidemics of waterborne diseases with effects on human health. In 2019, new viral pneumonia cases occurred in China and spread worldwide. The aim of this study was to assess the feasibility and accuracy of a wastewater-based epidemiological (WBE) monitoring tool in a SARS-CoV-2 hot spot (Sibiu City metropolitan area), namely to highlight the correlation between the number of infections on the days of sampling and the amount of viral RNA detected in wastewater. Wastewater samples were collected once a week, and viral RNA was extracted and quantified. In parallel, the daily number of SARS-CoV-2 infections was obtained from the local council. The correlation between the number of infections and viruses detected in sewage was measured by Pearson correlation coefficients. The results show the amount of viral RNA in the wastewater is directly correlated with the number of infections reported in the week up to the sampling day and also the number of infections reported for the sampling day. Moreover, correlation coefficients show the amount of viral RNA in wastewater increases in advance of the increase in reported infection cases. Therefore, WBE can be used as a tool for monitoring virus spread trends in human communities and can help anticipate the trend of this type of viral infection.

Keywords: sewage water; SARS-CoV-2; monitoring; risk assessment; management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/18/11725/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/18/11725/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:18:p:11725-:d:917355

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().