A longitudinal survey for genome-based identification of SARS-CoV-2 in sewage water in selected lockdown areas of Lahore city, Pakistan; a potential approach for future smart lockdown strategy

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Abstract

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections has affected more than 15 million people and, as of 22 July 2019, caused deaths of more than 0.6 million individuals globally. With the excretion of SARS-CoV-2 in the stool of symptomatic and asymptomatic COVID-19 patients, its genome detection in the sewage water can be used as a powerful epidemiological tool to predict the number of positive cases in a population. This study was conducted to detect SARS-CoV-2 genome in sewage water during the lockdown. Sewage samples, from 28 pre-selected sites, were collected on alternate days from 13-25 July, 2020 from two selected areas [Johar Town (n = 05) and Township (n = 23)], where smart lockdown were implemented by the government authorities on 9 th July, 2020. Genomic RNA was extracted and the SARS-CoV-2 was detected and quantified using commercially available kit through Real-Time PCR. Out of 28, sixteen samples were positive on day one while 19, 17, 23, 17, 05 and 09 samples were positive on day 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13, respectively. Results revealed a decreased positivity rate and SARS CoV-2 genome copies in sewage towards the end of lockdown however few sampling sites did not follow a clear pattern indicating the complexities in sewage water based surveillance i.e time of sampling etc. Hourly sampling from two sites for 24 hours also revealed the impact of sampling time on detection of SARS-CoV-2 genome in sewage. Results of current study insinuate a possible role of sewage-based COVID-19 surveillance in monitoring and execution of smart lockdowns.

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.31.20165126: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Thermal cycling reactions were carried out at 50 °C for 30 minutes, followed by 95 °C for 1 min and 45 cycles of 95 °C for 15 and 60 °C for 30 seconds on CFX-96 Real Time PCR detection system (Bio-Rad Laboratories).
    Bio-Rad Laboratories
    suggested: (Bio-Rad Laboratories, RRID:SCR_008426)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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