Automatic Samplers Assist in Detection of Pathogens, Viruses & CECs via Wastewater-based Epidemiology

WBE (or wastewater-based epidemiology or sewage chemical information mining) is a technique for identifying a population's consumption or exposure to chemicals or diseases. A sewage treatment facility measures chemical or biological entities (biomarkers) in municipal wastewater to do so. In addition to illicit drug usage, wastewater-based epidemiology can quantify alcohol, caffeine, medicines, and other chemicals. Wastewater-based epidemiology can also detect diseases like SARS-CoV-2 in a population. Wastewater-based epidemiology is a multidisciplinary effort including wastewater treatment plant operators, chemists, and epidemiologists.

Professionals in water quality use the term contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) to describe pollutants found in water bodies that may harm the environment or human health but are not currently regulated. Agriculture, urban runoff, ordinary household products (like soaps and disinfectants) and pharmaceuticals are all sources of these pollutants. 

Natural and synthetic hormones are emerging contaminants, as is 1,4-dioxane. CECs can enter the water cycle after being discharged as waste via runoff into rivers, effluent discharge, or seepage and infiltration into the water table, eventually entering the public water supply system. Some emerging contaminants are known carcinogens and cause endocrine disruption and other toxic mechanisms.

The full line of Teledyne ISCO samplers can assist local governments, private industry, colleges and universities, and many others in detecting the COVID-19 virus, pharmaceuticals and CECs in wastewater and providing the information needed to create a plan of action.

For more information about Teledyne ISCO product in Florida, contact Instrument Specialities, Inc. Call 407-324-7800 or visit https://isisales.com.

Wastewater Treatment Facilities Provide Possible COVID Tracking for Public Health Surveillance

New studies show that SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19, is shed in human feces and is collecting in our city sewers.  If the pandemic continues in waves as the latest estimates believe, wastewater treatment plants could provide early warnings to prevent ICUs and hospitals from being swarmed.

It needs to be mentioned that experts believe, based on previous coronavirus research, that SARS-COVID-2 is effectively removed through traditional water treatment processes. The focus on these public health surveillance efforts track virus levels before treatment.

Environmental microbiologists have studied pathogens in sewage for decades. In 1989, Israel set up a Polio virus sewage surveillance system. The use of sewage pathogen monitoring in wastewater treatment facilities as a public health surveillance tool, however, is a fairly new area of study. 

Biobot, Somerville, MA company who specializes in wastewater epidemiology, is establishing protocols to test sewage for SARS-CoV-2. Biobot analyzes viruses, bacteria, and chemical metabolites that are excreted in urine and stool and that collect in sewers. If the SARS CoV-2 protocol is successful, the data will give communities a dynamic map of the virus as it spreads to new places.

Data from sewage will enable communities to:

• Measure the scope of the outbreak independent from patient testing or hospital reporting, and include data on asymptomatic individuals,
• Provide decision support for officials determining the timing and severity of public health interventions to mitigate the overall spread of the disease,
• Better anticipate likely impact on hospital capacity in order to inform hospital readiness and the necessity of public health interventions,
• Track the effectiveness of interventions and measure the wind-down period of the outbreak, and
• Provide an early warning for reemergence of the coronavirus (if it does indeed have a seasonal cycle).

To learn more about their program, visit the Biobot website.

Other useful links about the effort to use wastewater for SARS-CoV-2 tracking:

https://news.stanford.edu/2020/03/26/understanding-spread-covid-19/

https://news.engin.umich.edu/2020/03/a-sewage-surveillance-effort-to-track-covid-19/