Passive sampling to scale wastewater surveillance of infectious disease: Lessons learned from COVID-19

Aaron Bivins; Devrim Kaya; Warish Ahmed; Joe Brown; Caitlyn Butler; Justin Greaves; Raeann Leal; Kendra Maas; Gouthami Rao; Samendra Sherchan; Deborah Sills; Ryan Sinclair; Robert T Wheeler; Cresten Mansfeldt

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.155347

Passive sampling to scale wastewater surveillance of infectious disease: Lessons learned from COVID-19

Sci Total Environ. 2022 Aug 20:835:155347. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.155347. Epub 2022 Apr 20.

Authors

Aaron Bivins¹, Devrim Kaya², Warish Ahmed³, Joe Brown⁴, Caitlyn Butler⁵, Justin Greaves⁶, Raeann Leal⁷, Kendra Maas⁸, Gouthami Rao⁴, Samendra Sherchan⁹, Deborah Sills¹⁰, Ryan Sinclair⁷, Robert T Wheeler¹¹, Cresten Mansfeldt¹²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Louisiana State University, 3255 Patrick F. Taylor Hall, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA. Electronic address: abivins@lsu.edu.
² School of Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA.
³ CSIRO Land and Water, Ecosciences Precinct, 41 Boggo Road, Dutton Park, QLD 4102, Australia.
⁴ Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7431, USA.
⁵ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 130 Natural Resources Rd., Amherst, MA 01003, USA.
⁶ School of Environmental Sustainability, Loyola University Chicago, 6364 N. Sheridan Rd, Chicago, IL 60660, USA.
⁷ Loma Linda University, School of Public Health, 24951 North Circle Drive, Loma Linda, CA 92354, USA.
⁸ Microbial Analyses, Resources, and Services Facility, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269, USA.
⁹ Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA; Center for Climate and Health, Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD 21251, USA.
¹⁰ Bucknell University, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Lewisburg, PA 17837, USA.
¹¹ Department of Molecular & Biomedical Sciences, University of Maine, 5735 Hitchner Hall, Orono, ME 04469, USA; Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and Engineering, University of Maine, 5735 Hitchner Hall, Orono, ME 04469, USA.
¹² University of Colorado Boulder, Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering, 1111 Engineering Drive, Boulder, CO 80309, USA; University of Colorado Boulder, Environmental Engineering Program, 4001 Discovery Dr, Boulder, CO 80303, USA.

Abstract

Much of what is known and theorized concerning passive sampling techniques has been developed considering chemical analytes. Yet, historically, biological analytes, such as Salmonella typhi, have been collected from wastewater via passive sampling with Moore swabs. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, passive sampling is re-emerging as a promising technique to monitor SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater. Method comparisons and disease surveillance using composite, grab, and passive sampling for SARS-CoV-2 RNA detection have found passive sampling with a variety of materials routinely produced qualitative results superior to grab samples and useful for sub-sewershed surveillance of COVID-19. Among individual studies, SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations derived from passive samplers demonstrated heterogeneous correlation with concentrations from paired composite samples ranging from weak (R² = 0.27, 0.31) to moderate (R² = 0.59) to strong (R² = 0.76). Among passive sampler materials, electronegative membranes have shown great promise with linear uptake of SARS-CoV-2 RNA observed for exposure durations of 24 to 48 h and in several cases RNA positivity on par with composite samples. Continuing development of passive sampling methods for the surveillance of infectious diseases via diverse forms of fecal waste should focus on optimizing sampler materials for the efficient uptake and recovery of biological analytes, kit-free extraction, and resource-efficient testing methods capable of rapidly producing qualitative or quantitative data. With such refinements passive sampling could prove to be a fundamental tool for scaling wastewater surveillance of infectious disease, especially among the 1.8 billion persons living in low-resource settings served by non-traditional wastewater collection infrastructure.

Keywords: COVID-19; Environmental surveillance; Moore swab; Passive sampling; SARS-CoV-2; Wastewater surveillance; Wastewater-based epidemiology.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

COVID-19* / epidemiology
Communicable Diseases* / epidemiology
Humans
Pandemics
RNA, Viral
SARS-CoV-2
Wastewater
Wastewater-Based Epidemiological Monitoring

Substances

RNA, Viral
Waste Water