SARS-CoV-2 surveillance in medical and industrial wastewater-a global perspective: a narrative review.

ABSTRACT

The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has spread at an unprecedented rate since late 2019, leading to the global COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, being able to detect SARS-CoV-2 in human populations with high coverage quickly is a huge challenge. As SARS-CoV-2 is excreted in human excreta and thus exposed to the aqueous environment through sewers, the goal is to develop an ideal, non-invasive, cost-effective epidemiological method for detecting SARS-CoV-2. Wastewater surveillance has gained widespread interest and is increasingly being investigated as an effective early warning tool for monitoring the spread and evolution of the virus. This review emphasizes important findings on SARS-CoV-2 wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) in different continents and techniques used to detect SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater during the period 2020-2022. The results show that WBE is a valuable population-level method for monitoring SARS-CoV-2 and is a valuable early warning alert. It can assist policymakers in formulating relevant policies to avoid the negative impacts of early or delayed action. Such strategy can also help avoid unnecessary wastage of medical resources, rationalize vaccine distribution, assist early detection, and contain large-scale outbreaks.