SARS-CoV-2 wastewater surveillance data can predict hospitalizations and ICU admissions.
Sci Total Environ
; 804: 150151, 2022 Jan 15.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-34623953
ABSTRACT
We measured SARS-CoV-2 RNA load in raw wastewater in Attica, Greece, by RT-qPCR for the environmental surveillance of COVID-19 for 6 months. The lag between RNA load and pandemic indicators (COVID-19 hospital and intensive care unit (ICU) admissions) was calculated using a grid search. Our results showed that RNA load in raw wastewater is a leading indicator of positive COVID-19 cases, new hospitalization and admission into ICUs by 5, 8 and 9 days, respectively. Modelling techniques based on distributed/fixed lag modelling, linear regression and artificial neural networks were utilized to build relationships between SARS-CoV-2 RNA load in wastewater and pandemic health indicators. SARS-CoV-2 mutation analysis in wastewater during the third pandemic wave revealed that the alpha-variant was dominant. Our results demonstrate that clinical and environmental surveillance data can be combined to create robust models to study the on-going COVID-19 infection dynamics and provide an early warning for increased hospital admissions.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
SARS-CoV-2
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
/
Screening_studies
Limits:
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
Sci Total Environ
Year:
2022
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Greece