First confirmed detection of SARS-COV-2 in untreated municipal and aircraft wastewater in Dubai, UAE: The use of wastewater based epidemiology as an early warning tool to monitor the prevalence of COVID-19

Abstract

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome – Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in Wuhan, China and spread to more than 114 countries resulting in a pandemic, which was declared by the WHO in March 2020. Tracking the spread of the virus raised a main concern in every country. Many researches proved the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in stool samples of patients, where the genes of this virus gave a positive signal several days prior to the occurrence of symptoms. The fact of viral shedding in stools provides an advantage in utilizing wastewater systems as a tool to monitor the viral prevalence. We tested more than 2900 municipal wastewater samples coming from 49 distinctive area in Dubai, where 28.6% showed positive results. We also looked into the wastewater samples from 198 commercial aircrafts arriving at Dubai Airport, giving a positive result percentage of 13.6%. The presence of SARS-CoV-2 genes was confirmed using TaqPath™ Covid-19 RT-PCR kit, which targets ORF1ab , N gene and S gene. This project shows the significance of utilizing wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) in monitoring the prevalence of various infectious diseases such as SARS-CoV-2, which can assist the decision makers to determine the level of precautionary measures according to the areas of the outbreak. With this in mind, pricewise, WBE is considered cost-effective when comparing to clinical nasal swabs.

Uncertainties in estimating SARS-CoV-2 prevalence by wastewater-based epidemiology

“…The relative higher cases could be attributed to underdiagnose, numerous asymptomatic cases and the uncertainty in virus shedding as discussed in section 2.1. Besides, SARS-CoV-2 RNA has been detected successfully in wastewater collected from inbound commercial passenger aircraft [9] , [29] and one cruise ship docked in Australia [9] . This extends the feasibility of using WBE as a powerful tool to monitor viruses in transportation facilities, however, its application might be limited as the wastewater can only be collected after landed or docked.…”

“…human excretion), and catchment population, the catchment-level prevalence can be estimated. To date, the existence of SARS-CoV-2 virus RNA in wastewater have been confirmed in many countries, including, Australia [8] , [9] , Brazil [10] , China [11] , [12] , Czech Republic [13] , Ecuador [14] , France [15] , [16] , India [17] , [18] , Italy [19] , [20] , [21] , [22] , Japan [23] , Spain [24] , [25] , the Netherlands [7] , United Kingdom (UK) [26] , Slovenia [27] , Sweden [28] , United Arab Emirates (UAE) [29] , [30] and United States (USA) [31] , [32] , [33] , [34] , [35] . The successful detection of SARS-CoV-2 virus RNA through reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) and sequencing approaches in wastewater demonstrated the high potential of applying WBE as a tool to estimate the COVID-19 prevalence in their communities.…”

Water science under the global epidemic of COVID-19: Bibliometric tracking on COVID-19 publication and further research needs

“…For example, Lodder and de Roda Husman [22] provided perspective on “SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater: potential health risk, but also data source”, saying that the wastewater could be a sensitive surveillance system and early warning tool in pandemic. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has been quickly and widely tested in many countries and regions around the world, such as Spain [11] , [23] , Italy [8] , [24] , [25] , UK [26] , Netherlands [13] , USA [27] , [28] , India [14] , [29] , Japan [15] , Germany [7] , Australia [17] , [30] , and United Arab Emirates [16] . Many countries, such as Ireland and China, were conducting such kind of research to closely monitor wastewater related SARS-CoV-2.…”

“…There has been consensus on the role of water, sanitation and personal hygiene in reducing SARS-CoV-2 transmission and supporting the response to COVID-19 [2] , [3] , [4] . On the other hand, scientific reports indicated that SARS-CoV-2 has been widely detected in wastewater [5] , [6] , [7] , [8] , [9] , [10] , [11] , [12] , [13] , [14] , [15] , [16] , [17] , [18] . The occurrence, fates and potential treatment approaches of this virus in the water cycle should be urgently studied.…”

Surveillance of Wastewater for Early Epidemic Prediction (SWEEP): Environmental and health security perspectives in the post COVID-19 Anthropocene

“… Numbers predicted by WBE were similar to clinical observation. ( Albastaki et al, 2020 ) China (Wuhan) Mar-Apr 2020 Raw and treated wastewater TNO (The Netherlands Organization) SARS-CoV-2 detected in treated effluent are most often free from SARS-CoV-2 genes. but found in raw wastewater in some cases.…”