Monitoring COVID-19 spread in Prague local neighborhoods based on the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater collected throughout the sewer network

Abstract

Many reports have documented that the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in the influents of municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) correlates with the actual epidemic situation in a given city. However, few data have been reported thus far on measurements upstream of WWTPs, i.e. throughout the sewer network. In this study, the monitoring of the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in Prague wastewater was carried out at selected locations of the Prague sewer network from August 2020 through May 2021. Various locations such as residential areas of various sizes, hospitals, city center areas, student dormitories, transportation hubs (airport, bus terminal), and commercial areas were monitored together with four of the main Prague sewers. The presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA was determined by reverse transcription - multiplex quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-mqPCR) after the precipitation of nucleic acids with PEG8000 and RNA isolation with TRIzol Reagent. The number of copies of the gene encoding SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid (N1) per liter of wastewater was compared with the number of officially registered COVID-19 cases in Prague. Although the data obtained by sampling wastewater from the major Prague sewers were more consistent than those obtained from the small sewers, the correlation between wastewater-based and clinical-testing data was also good for the residential areas with more than 1 000 registered inhabitants. It was shown that monitoring SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater sampled from small sewers could identify isolated occurrences of COVID-19-positive cases in local neighborhoods. This can be very valuable while tracking COVID-19 hotspots within large cities.

Structured Ethical Review for Wastewater-Based Testing in Support of Public Health

“…Distribution of assigned flags (“minimal review required”, “review suggested”, “review strongly suggested”, “not available in the main text”, “not applicable”) for the top 11 categories in the structured ethical review, represented as a fraction percent of all publications analyzed ( n = 53) with multiple reviewers providing reports for select individual studies, resulting in more reviews than studies ( n = 79). ,− ,− In total, 56 publications were represented by these studies, with 3 having two publications describing the same monitoring campaign and considered in concert. The categories are sorted by ascending proportion of “minimal review required”.…”

“…Likely, this higher level of detail resulted from building-level monitoring programs intentionally designed to use WBT to assist in clinical testing and quarantine procedures. However, of all papers reviewed, only a few noted a process for obtaining consent from the studied populations. ,,,,,,, …”

“…However, of all papers reviewed, only a few noted a process for o b t a i n i n g c o n s e n t f r o m t h e s t u d i e d p o p u l ations. 45,50,63,78,80,84,90,99 Learning from SARS-CoV-2: Sustaining Future Applications of WBT. The structured ethical review aims to provide a framework to assess new areas or targets of monitoring and to document evolving ethical applications of WBT when uniting technical innovation, community engagement, and professional collaboration.…”

Structured Ethical Review for Wastewater-Based Testing

“…Likely, this higher level of detail resulted from building-level monitoring programs intentionally designed to use WBT to assist clinical testing and quarantine procedures. However, of all papers reviewed, only a few noted a process for obtaining consent from the studied populations 45,50,63,78,80,84,90,99 .…”

“…Therefore, establishing, applying, and updating this structured ethical review over time will result in a transparent record of our understanding of the best ethical practices when applying WBT within and beyond public health surveillance. 99 Future WBT structured ethical reviews may need to consider human-specific, rather than just pathogen-specific, target biomolecules. Early within the development of this structured ethical review, it was established that the purview of recovering human genetic material was not the main focus of this tool given that considerations for targeted human monitoring are already developed in the biomedical research community and remain a bioethics concern beyond that of WBT 102 .…”