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SARS-CoV-2 Variant Tracking in Ohio Wastewater
Citation:
Brinkman, N. SARS-CoV-2 Variant Tracking in Ohio Wastewater. Public Heath and Water Conference & Wastewater Disease Surveillance Summit, Cincinnati, OH, March 21 - 24, 2022.
Impact/Purpose:
Tracking the spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants through Ohio communities via wastewater monitoring is providing valuable data to state public health officials.
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. Since SARS-CoV-2 is shed in feces by a large proportion of infected individuals and collected in the sewerage system, many entities have been monitoring municipal wastewater to document trends of viral RNA concentrations over time. This type of surveillance can supplement individual testing and could provide a more comprehensive analysis of COVID-19 prevalence in the community since a large proportion of 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 from utilities in Ohio as part of a statewide wastewater surveillance plan to aid in determining public health responses. In addition to twice weekly measurement of SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations in wastewater, we are sequencing SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater samples to look at genetic diversity in contributing populations on a temporal and spatial scale as surges driven by the Variants of Concern spread across Ohio.