Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in Communities Through Wastewater Surveillance-a Potential Approach for Estimation of Disease Burden

Prosun Bhattacharya; Manish Kumar; Md Tahmidul Islam; Rehnuma Haque; Sudip Chakraborty; Arslan Ahmad; Nabeel Khan Niazi; Zeynep Cetecioglu; David Nilsson; Julian Ijumulana; Tom van der Voorn; Md Jakariya; Maqsud Hossain; Firoz Ahmed; Mahbubur Rahman; Nargis Akter; Dara Johnston; Kazi Matin Ahmed

doi:10.1007/s40726-021-00178-4

Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in Communities Through Wastewater Surveillance-a Potential Approach for Estimation of Disease Burden

Curr Pollut Rep. 2021;7(2):160-166. doi: 10.1007/s40726-021-00178-4. Epub 2021 Apr 6.

Authors

Prosun Bhattacharya^#^{1

2}, Manish Kumar^#³, Md Tahmidul Islam^{1

4}, Rehnuma Haque⁵, Sudip Chakraborty⁶, Arslan Ahmad⁷, Nabeel Khan Niazi^{8

9}, Zeynep Cetecioglu¹⁰, David Nilsson¹¹, Julian Ijumulana¹, Tom van der Voorn¹², Md Jakariya¹³, Maqsud Hossain¹⁴, Firoz Ahmed¹⁵, Mahbubur Rahman⁵, Nargis Akter¹⁶, Dara Johnston¹⁶, Kazi Matin Ahmed¹⁷

Affiliations

¹ Department of Sustainable Development, Environmental Science and Engineering, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Teknikringen 10B, SE-11428 Stockholm, Sweden.
² KWR Watercycle Research Institute, Groningenhaven 7, 3433 PE Nieuwegein, The Netherlands.
³ Discipline of Earth Science, Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad, Gujarat 382 355 India.
⁴ WaterAid Bangladesh, House 97/B, Road 25, Block A, Banani, Dhaka, 1213 Bangladesh.
⁵ Environmental Interventions Unit, Infectious Disease Division, icddr,b, 68 Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Sarani, Mohakhali, Dhaka, 1212 Bangladesh.
⁶ Department of DIMES, University of Calabria, Via P. Bucci, Cubo 42/a, 87036 Rende, Italy.
⁷ Department of Environmental Technology, Wageningen University and Research (WUR), Droevendaalsesteeg 4, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands.
⁸ Institute of Soil and Environmental Sciences, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Faisalabad, 38040 Pakistan.
⁹ School of Civil Engineering and Surveying, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Queensland 4350 Australia.
¹⁰ Department of Chemical Engineering, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Teknikringen 42, Stockholm, SE-10044 Sweden.
¹¹ WaterCenter@KTH, Department of Sustainable Development, Environmental Science and Engineering, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Teknikringen 10B, SE-11428 Stockholm, Sweden.
¹² University of Osnabrück, Institute of Environmental Systems Research, Barbarastr. 12, 49069 Osnabrück, Germany.
¹³ Department of Environmental Science and Management, North South University, Bashundhara, Dhaka, 1229 Bangladesh.
¹⁴ Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, NSU Genome Research Institute (NGRI), North South University, Bashundhara, Dhaka, 1229 Bangladesh.
¹⁵ Department of Microbiology, Noakhali University of Science and Technology, Noakhali, Bangladesh.
¹⁶ Water Sanitation and Hygiene Section, United Nations Children's Fund, BSL Office Complex, 1 Minto Road, Dhaka, 1000 Bangladesh.
¹⁷ Department of Geology, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, 1000 Bangladesh.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

The episodic outbreak of COVID-19 due to SARS-CoV-2 is severely affecting the economy, and the global count of infected patients is increasing. The actual number of patients had been underestimated due to limited facilities for testing as well as asymptomatic nature of the expression of COVID-19 on individual basis. Tragically, for emerging economies with high population density, the situation has been more complex due to insufficient testing facilities for diagnosis of the disease. However, the recent reports about persistent shedding of viral RNA of SARS-CoV-2 in the human feces have created a possibility to track the prevalence and trends of the disease in communities, known as wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE). In this article, we highlight the current limitations and future prospects for WBE to manage pandemics.

Keywords: COVID-19; Developing Countries; Monitoring; Prevalence; SARS-CoV-2; Wastewater surveillance.

Publication types

Review