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.
摘要:
基于废水的流行病学(WBE)正在成为一种在社区水平上研究SARS-CoV-2感染动态的潜在方法。定期污水监测可以作为一个指示性工具,预测社区内流行病的早期激增,并了解感染的动态,因此,有利于适当的医疗保健管理。在这项研究中,我们进行了长期流行病学监测,以评估SARS-CoV-2在生活污水中的传播时间超过一年(2020年7月至2021年8月),方法是采用纵向抽样来代表一个选定的社区(约2.5万人口).结果表明病毒载量的时间动态。在2020年7月至2020年11月的几个月中观察到一致的病毒载量,表明病毒感染在社区中的传播更高。随后两个月(2020年12月和2021年1月)下降。在2021年2月期间观察到了小幅增长,暗示了2021年4月到达的第二波浪潮(从2021年3月开始)的开始。根据病毒基因拷贝计算社区感染率的动态,以评估COVID-19传播的严重程度。有了预测感染传播的能力,纵向WBE研究还提供了根据感染率对特定区域进行分区的前景。根据感染率对选定社区进行分区有助于健康管理以有效的方式计划和管理感染。WBE促进同时进行疾病检测和管理的临床检查,除了预测疫情的预警信号外,关于指定的社区/地区,解决,准备和管理大流行。