SARS-CoV-2 surveillance in untreated wastewater: detection of viral RNA in a low-resource community in Buenos Aires, Argentina
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Abstract
Objective. To measure SARS-CoV-2 RNA in sewage in a low-resource community in order to determine if it can be considered as an estimator of changes in the prevalence of COVID-19 in the population.
Methods. In this descriptive observational study we collected samples of surface waters contaminated with sewage and optimized a method of purification of viral RNA using PEG concentration. We determined the amount of genetic material by quantitative real-time PCR using the CDC method for SARS-CoV-2 detection.
Results. We quantified viral RNA in surface waters contaminated with sewage of a low resource community and determined that temporal trends of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater samples mirrored trends in COVID-19 active cases.
Conclusions. Measuring of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in sewage can be applied in low-resource communities without connection to sewers as an estimator of changes in the prevalence of COVID-19.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.10.21.20215434: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
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: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Nevertheless, we need to acknowledge some limitation. The strategy has some restrictions due to the aforementioned characteristics regarding the neighborhood infrastructure and the sampling; the hydraulic retention time has to …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.10.21.20215434: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
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: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Nevertheless, we need to acknowledge some limitation. The strategy has some restrictions due to the aforementioned characteristics regarding the neighborhood infrastructure and the sampling; the hydraulic retention time has to be determined and sampling more frequently may reduce the variance and noise in the data. There are also uncertainties due to limited knowledge about SARS-CoV-2 gastrointestinal infection, the concentration of viral RNA in stool over the course of the illness, the variability in viral dynamics in individuals and fecal shedding [16, 17, 19, 20, 21]. Because of this, the number of cases cannot be estimated with confidence directly from the quantification of viral RNA in wastewater [19]. However, we were able to detect the presence of SARS-CoV-2 genetic material and follow the dynamics of the infection in the community. We believe that the methodology could be improved by increasing the sampling frequency and time of sampling. Although this methodology has its limitations, lengthwise trends of SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentration in fecal contaminated surface water may still be useful in supplementing conventional surveillance methods to interpret the trends in community transmission. A more comprehensive COVID-19 surveillance system could be developed if wastewater SARS-CoV-2 frequent measurement is included, taking into account the disposal, fate, and transport of wastewater in each community. Sewage testing has been successfully used as a method for early detec...
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.
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