Longitudinal and Long-Term Wastewater Surveillance for COVID-19: Infection Dynamics and Zoning of Urban Community

Athmakuri Tharak, Harishankar Kopperi, Manupati Hemalatha, Uday Kiran, Gokulan C. G., Shivranjani Moharir, Rakesh K. Mishra and S. Venkata Mohan
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Athmakuri Tharak: Bioengineering and Environmental Sciences Lab, Department of Energy and Environmental Engineering (DEEE), CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (CSIR-IICT), Hyderabad 500007, India
Harishankar Kopperi: Bioengineering and Environmental Sciences Lab, Department of Energy and Environmental Engineering (DEEE), CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (CSIR-IICT), Hyderabad 500007, India
Manupati Hemalatha: Bioengineering and Environmental Sciences Lab, Department of Energy and Environmental Engineering (DEEE), CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (CSIR-IICT), Hyderabad 500007, India
Uday Kiran: Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Ghaziabad 201002, India
Gokulan C. G.: CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CSIR-CCMB), Hyderabad 500007, India
Shivranjani Moharir: CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CSIR-CCMB), Hyderabad 500007, India
Rakesh K. Mishra: Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Ghaziabad 201002, India
S. Venkata Mohan: Bioengineering and Environmental Sciences Lab, Department of Energy and Environmental Engineering (DEEE), CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (CSIR-IICT), Hyderabad 500007, India

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 5, 1-20

Abstract: Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is emerging as a potential approach to study the infection dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 at a community level. Periodic sewage surveillance can act as an indicative tool to predict the early surge of pandemic within the community and understand the dynamics of infection and, thereby, facilitates for proper healthcare management. In this study, we performed a long-term epidemiological surveillance to assess the SARS-CoV-2 spread in domestic sewage over one year (July 2020 to August 2021) by adopting longitudinal sampling to represent a selected community (~2.5 lakhs population). Results indicated temporal dynamics in the viral load. A consistent amount of viral load was observed during the months from July 2020 to November 2020, suggesting a higher spread of the viral infection among the community, followed by a decrease in the subsequent two months (December 2020 and January 2021). A marginal increase was observed during February 2021, hinting at the onset of the second wave (from March 2021) that reached it speak in April 2021. Dynamics of the community infection rates were calculated based on the viral gene copies to assess the severity of COVID-19 spread. With the ability to predict the infection spread, longitudinal WBE studies also offer the prospect of zoning specific areas based on the infection rates. Zoning of the selected community based on the infection rates assists health management to plan and manage the infection in an effective way. WBE promotes clinical inspection with simultaneous disease detection and management, in addition to an advance warning signal to anticipate outbreaks, with respect to the slated community/zones, to tackle, prepare for and manage the pandemic.

Keywords: longitudinal sampling; SARS-CoV-2; RNA copies; infection rate; zoning; community spread (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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