COVID-19 wastewater based epidemiology: long-term monitoring of 10 WWTP in France reveals the importance of the sampling context

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has been advanced as a relevant indicator of distribution of COVID-19 in communities, supporting classical testing and tracing epidemiological approaches. An extensive sampling campaign, including ten municipal wastewater treatment plants, has been conducted in different cities of France over a 20-weeks period, encompassing the second peak of COVID-19 outbreak in France. A well-recognised ultrafiltration – RNA extraction – RT-qPCR protocol was used and qualified, showing 5.5 +/− 0.5% recovery yield on heat-inactivated SARS-CoV-2. Importantly the whole, solid and liquid, fraction of wastewater was used for virus concentration in this study. Campaign results showed medium- to strong- correlation between SARS-CoV-2 WBE data and COVID-19 prevalence. To go further, statistical relationships between WWTP inlet flow rate and raining were studied and taken into account for each WWTP in order to calculate contextualized SARS-CoV-2 loads. This metric presented improved correlation strengths with COVID-19 prevalence for WWTP particularly submitted and sensitive to rain. Such findings highlighted that SARS-CoV-2 WBE data ultimately require to be contextualized for relevant interpretation.

Detection of SARS-CoV-2 and Other Viruses in Wastewater: Optimization and Automation of an Aluminum Hydroxide Adsorption–Precipitation Method for Virus Concentration

“… 27 , 43 − 46 The recoveries were all higher than the ISO limit (>1%) for bottled water (ISO 15216-1, 2017), which is widely used as the standard to assess the feasibility of the concentration and detection method for virus. 27 , 47 , 48 Among the six animal viruses, PRV and PPV are DNA viruses and the others are RNA viruses. PEDV, TGEV, AIV, and PRV are enveloped viruses, while PPV and PoRV are non-enveloped ones.…”

Coupling Wastewater-Based Epidemiological Surveillance and Modelling of SARS-COV-2/COVID-19: Practical Applications at the Public Health Agency of Canada

“…Environmental factors such as precipitation or snowmelts have been described as critical factors that could influence viral signals in the wastewater (Lazuka et al, 2021). However, the impact of environmental factors could vary depending on the type of the sewer system serviced by a WWTP.…”

“…Combined systems (CS) collect storm water from surface runoff and wastewater together within the same pipes. While CS would only collect wastewater as influent water to the WWTP during dry weather, wet weather or high precipitation events (including snowmelts) would increase the influent flow rate and dilute viral concentration present in the wastewater (Lazuka et al, 2021). In contrast, sanitary systems mostly separate storm water and sewage, which means the influent volume do not significantly change based on the weather, avoiding the dilution of the viral signal.…”

Wastewater-Based Epidemiology for SARS-CoV-2 Biomarkers: Evaluation of Normalization Methods in Small and Large Communities in Southern Germany

“…For instance, multiplying the gene concentrations with the wastewater flow in order to obtain gene loads has been frequently applied, leading to mixed results. ,,− Furthermore, common wastewater parameters such as ammonia, , total nitrogen, and orthophosphate have been used for normalization, although they are susceptible to industrial discharge . Further promising candidates for SARS-CoV-2 biomarker normalization are the pepper mild mottle virus (PMMoV), a plant virus that enters the human body through the diet, and the cross-assembly phage (CrAssphage), a bacteriophage found in the human gut, that are abundant in and closely linked to human feces. − Both surrogate viruses have been tested for normalization purposes. ,,,− ,,, Investigations on the application and comparison of normalization approaches so far focused mainly on flow data, fecal markers CrAssphage and PMMoV, and ammonia. ,,,, In a further step, several studies assessed the suitability of these parameters for normalization, investigating their temporal and spatial variation, , seasonal trends, or correlation with flow data ,, and precipitation data …”

“…14,18,19,24,26 In a further step, several studies assessed the suitability of these parameters for normalization, investigating their temporal and spatial variation, 18,19 seasonal trends, 34 or correlation with flow data 24,26,35 and precipitation data. 36 In this study, we report SARS-CoV-2 biomarker data from a wastewater monitoring program of seven wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) of varying size located in southern Germany. The reported 5-month sampling period captured the fourth wave of infections in Germany, dominated by the Delta variant (B.…”