Tracking community infection dynamics of COVID-19 by monitoring SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater, counting positive reactions by qPCR.
Sci Total Environ
; 904: 166420, 2023 Dec 15.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-37611711
ABSTRACT
Wastewater-based epidemiology has proved useful for monitoring the COVID-19 infection dynamics in communities. However, in regions of low prevalence, low concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater make this difficult. Here, we used real-time reverse-transcription PCR (RT-qPCR) to monitor SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater from October 2020 to December 2022 during the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth waves of the COVID-19 outbreak in Japan. Viral RNA was below the limit of detection in all samples during the third and fourth waves. However, by counting the number of positive replicates in qPCR of each sample, we found that the positive ratio to all replicates in wastewater was significantly correlated with the number of clinically confirmed cases by the date of symptom onset during the third, fourth, and fifth waves. Time-step analysis indicated that, for 2 days either side of symptom onset, COVID-19 patients excreted in their feces large amounts of virus that wastewater surveillance could detect. We also demonstrated that the viral genome copy number in wastewater, as estimated from the positive ratio of SARSA-CoV-2 RNA, was correlated with the number of clinically confirmed cases. The positive count method is thus useful for tracing COVID-19 dynamics in regions of low prevalence.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
RNA, Viral
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Risk_factors_studies
Limits:
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
Sci Total Environ
Year:
2023
Document type:
Article