Sewage surveillance for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 genome as a useful wastewater based epidemiology (WBE) tracking tool in India

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Abstract

The infection with SARS-CoV-2 is reported to be accompanied by the shedding of the virus in fecal samples of infected patients. Earlier reports have suggested that COVID-19 agents can be present in the sewage samples and thus it can be a good indication of the pandemic extent in a community. However, no such studies have been reported in the Indian context. Hence, it becomes absolutely necessary to detect the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 in the wastewater samples from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) serving different localities of Jaipur city. Samples from different WWTPs and hospital wastewater samples were collected and wastewater based epidemiology (WBE) studies were carried out using the RT-PCR to confirm the presence of different COVID-19 target genes namely S gene, E gene, ORF1ab gene, RdRp gene and N gene. The results revealed that the untreated wastewater samples showed the presence of SARS-CoV-2 viral genome, which was correlated with the increased number of COVID-19 positive patients from the concerned areas, as reported in the publically available health data. This is the first study that investigated the presence of SARS-CoV-2 viral genome in wastewater, at higher ambient temperature (45 °C), further validating WBE as potential tool in predicting and mitigating outbreaks.

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.18.20135277: (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
    Assay kit (cat# RP10244Y, RP10243X) or TaqPath™ COVID-19 Combo Kit (Cat#A47814) for the qualitative detection of SARS-CoV-2 genomic RNA in the sample on BioRAD CFX96 IVA Real-Time PCR and Applied Biosystems™ QuantStudio™ 5, respectively.
    BioRAD
    suggested: None

    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

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.