Understanding and managing uncertainty and variability for wastewater monitoring beyond the pandemic: Lessons learned from the United Kingdom national COVID-19 surveillance programmes.

Understanding and managing uncertainty and variability for wastewater monitoring beyond the pandemic: Lessons learned from the United Kingdom national COVID-19 surveillance programmes

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2022.118070

Metrics to relate COVID-19 wastewater data to clinical testing dynamics

SARS-CoV-2 surveillance by wastewater-based epidemiology is poised to provide a complementary approach to sequencing individual cases. However, robust quantification of variants and de novo detection of emerging variants remains challenging for existing strategies. We deep sequenced 3,413 wastewater samples representing 94 municipal catchments, covering >59% of the population of Austria, from December 2020 to February 2022. Our system of variant quantification in sewage pipeline designed for robustness (termed VaQuERo) enabled us to deduce the spatiotemporal abundance of predefined variants from complex wastewater samples. These results were validated against epidemiological records of >311,000 individual cases. Furthermore, we describe elevated viral genetic diversity during the Delta variant period, provide a framework to predict emerging variants and measure the reproductive advantage of variants of concern by calculating variant-specific reproduction numbers from wastewater. Together, this study demonstrates the power of national-scale WBE to support public health and promises particular value for countries without extensive individual monitoring. Wastewater surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 at the national scale tracks emerging variants. 

/pdf/viral-variant-resolved-wastewater-surveillance-of-sars-cov-2-rjyaosx7.pdf

Viral variant-resolved wastewater surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 at national scale.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.153171

Detection of the Omicron (B.1.1.529) variant of SARS-CoV-2 in aircraft wastewater

Contribution of SARS-CoV-2 RNA shedding routes to RNA loads in wastewater.

Contribution of SARS-CoV-2 RNA shedding routes to RNA loads in wastewater

This study evaluated a passive sampling and rapid LAMP detection of SARS-CoV-2 for near-source ( i.e. , building-level) wastewater based epidemiology applications. 

Building-level wastewater surveillance using tampon swabs and RT-LAMP for rapid SARS-CoV-2 RNA detection

Since the start of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, there has been interest in using wastewater monitoring as an approach for disease surveillance. A significant uncertainty that would improve the interpretation of wastewater monitoring data is the intensity and timing with which individuals shed RNA from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) into wastewater. By combining wastewater and case surveillance data sets from a university campus during a period of heightened surveillance, we inferred that individual shedding of RNA into wastewater peaks on average 6 days (50% uncertainty interval (UI): 6-7; 95% UI: 4-8) following infection, and that wastewater measurements are highly overdispersed [negative binomial dispersion parameter, k = 0.39 (95% credible interval: 0.32-0.48)]. This limits the utility of wastewater surveillance as a leading indicator of secular trends in SARS-CoV-2 transmission during an epidemic, and implies that it could be most useful as an early warning of rising transmission in areas where transmission is low or clinical testing is delayed or of limited capacity. 

/pdf/inferring-sars-cov-2-rna-shedding-into-wastewater-relative-20wmvvkd.pdf

Marli José Passos

Papers

Contribution of SARS-CoV-2 RNA shedding routes to RNA loads in wastewater.

Contribution of SARS-CoV-2 RNA shedding routes to RNA loads in wastewater

Building-level wastewater surveillance using tampon swabs and RT-LAMP for rapid SARS-CoV-2 RNA detection

Inferring SARS-CoV-2 RNA shedding into wastewater relative to the time of infection

Sodium hypochlorite disinfection of SARS-CoV-2 spiked in water and municipal wastewater