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SARS-CoV-2 wastewater monitoring: Ohio Coronavirus Wastewater Monitoring Network, Cincinnati
Citation:
Brinkman, N. SARS-CoV-2 wastewater monitoring: Ohio Coronavirus Wastewater Monitoring Network, Cincinnati. To be Presented at National WW Surveillance Initiative Steering Committee, Cincinnati, Ohio, October 28, 2020.
Impact/Purpose:
Wastewater monitoring for SARS-CoV-2 is one of many tools public health officials can use to understand community transmission of COVID-19. Here, our research efforts to date are presented and highlight an assessment of our methodology to detect SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater, temporal trends of the virus in wastewater and application for use of wastewater data in this context.
Description:
Environmental surveillance of wastewater can be used to monitor the prevalence, genetic diversity, and spatial/temporal trends of enteric virus circulation in communities, uncovering silent transmission before severe disease is documented. This tool is currently being used to track poliovirus transmission in vulnerable communities and assist in the World Health Organization’s efforts to achieve global poliovirus eradication. Like poliovirus, SARS-CoV-2 is shed by a large proportion of infected individuals into the sewerage system, prompting many groups to explore environmental surveillance through wastewater monitoring to track incidences of COVID-19. This type of surveillance can provide sentinel detection of emerging outbreaks, since a large proportion of community cases may be asymptomatic or self-limiting and remain unrepresented in clinical data. In collaboration with the Ohio Department of Health, the Ohio Water Resources Center, the Ohio EPA and various university labs, we are actively monitoring wastewater in Ohio cities as part of a statewide wastewater surveillance plan to aid in determining public health advisory levels and responses. In this presentation, I will summarize our efforts to monitor SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater, including method assessment to detect SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater, temporal trends of SARS-CoV-2 in local wastewater and inclusion of data to Ohio’s Coronavirus Dashboard.