Using untreated wastewater can get around these problems, especially if a wastewater treatment facility adds disinfectant before sedimentation. Because this sample type is concentrated, however, it may also have higher concentrations of inhibitors that can complicate nucleic acid extraction and/or downstream analysis. Sludge typically has higher concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 RNA, requires lower collection volumes, and can help identify rare cases in large communities. While there is no scientific consensus on the most reliable sample type, there are distinct advantages and disadvantages to using either sludge or untreated wastewater.
The CDC and other research groups recommend collecting and using either untreated wastewater, which includes human fecal waste from a variety of sources, or sludge, made up of sedimented solids that settle out of wastewater before treatment. Several publications have reported successful detection of SARS-CoV-2 from a variety of sample types, including primary sludge, municipal sewage, and untreated wastewater. What type of samples will you be processing? Dynabeads Intact Virus Enrichment beads are used on KingFisher purification systems for processing up to 96 virus-containing samples in ~20 minutes.
They precipitate the virus the solution by tying up water molecules, which results in less-soluble components (i.e., virus) being forced out of solution. The Dynabeads can efficiently isolate SARS-CoV-2 from cell culture media, virus transport media and wastewater samples. If you’re currently in the planning stages for wastewater-based epidemiology program, we have 4 key questions to reflect on so that your workflows operate as accurately and efficiently as possible.
Implementing the proper workflow that suits the needs of your monitoring program and community requires you to consider some key details at each step of the process. However, the use of wastewater samples (and other related sample types) for community testing presents distinct challenges in establishing accurate, efficient, and high-throughput workflows, that can accommodate school, county, or city-wide scales.ĭepending on testing protocols, wastewater testing workflows can require immense amounts of hands-on time, including time for the collection of samples, extraction of viral RNA, and detection using methodologies such as quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR), digital droplet PCR (ddPCR), isothermal amplification, or next-generation sequencing (NGS). Maximizing the Potential of Wastewater Surveillance WorkflowsĪs SARS-CoV-2 viral spread continues internationally, wastewater testing continues to be a critical part of assessing the infection dynamics of communities, the appearance of new variants, and overall vaccine efficacy. There has been widespread adoption and implementation of testing programs worldwide and wastewater-based epidemiology research projects have expanded over the past year from dozens to more than two hundred.Īnd it’s easy to see why: The method has helped anticipate future infection burden and has several advantages over traditional diagnostics, including the non-invasive, unbiased identification of asymptomatic carriers.1 It’s also a cost-effective and time-saving alternative to individualized testing, which requires readily available access to healthcare personnel and facilities. 1 This epidemiological approach has been used to track infectious diseases for centuries and this continues with COVID-19 monitoring. The discovery that SARS-CoV-2 viral particles and fragments are shed in the feces of COVID-19 patients, led to the inventive use of wastewater testing to measure infection dynamics within small to large communities. From the rapid development and manufacturing of novel mRNA vaccines on a global scale to the creation of myriad diagnostic tests, our scientific community has helped protect against the current and continued threat of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The COVID-19 pandemic has spawned a year of innovation never before seen in the biotech and pharma industries.
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