Understanding the scale and intensity of the , predicting the pandemic’s direction, and developing and refining associated management response options are challenges likely to confront public-health officials and national governments worldwide well into the future.
for COVID-19 varies widely from country to country and often is insufficient. can lag infections by weeks and asymptomatic or mild cases go unreported.
One diagnostic option drawing growing attention and application: Detecting COVID-19 in community and urban wastewater.
offers near real-time insights into the scale of the virus’ presence among a vast number of people, and can reveal the – rising or falling.
Sewers offer an for COVID-19 outbreaks. Wastewater with higher concentrations of the virus corresponds to higher numbers of infected people. Compared to systematic testing of individuals, wastewater analysis is not only less invasive and simpler, it .
Detecting viruses in a community this way has been practiced since the early 1990s when extensive supported efforts to eradicate polio. Such experience over the years has proven that monitoring wastewater for pathogen traces is a reliable and effective disease surveillance technique.
Armies of worldwide have been pursuing wastewater monitoring since the last year.
A of “COVID and wastewater” shows over 53 million results, and around 20,000 publications on the subject, one-third of them produced since the beginning of 2021.
One this year proposed an archived time series of urban sewage samples as a record of pandemics and other features of the evolving Anthropocene — an invaluable resource for future anthropologists.
Most about COVID-19 surveillance in wastewater and sewage sludge have come from developed countries. In the developing world, however, the picture is very different. Unfortunately, about 90% of wastewater generated in low-income developing countries ; it is released to the environment untreated. In lower-middle-income countries, about .
enables timely preventive and coping measures, which would help developing nations immensely. The “” in many such countries, however, is that wastewater goes untreated into the environment — often entering freshwater bodies through hidden or visible pipes, for example, or contaminating groundwater.
Wastewater is essential for protecting human health and the absence of such practices leads to . Sadly, it also creates a missed opportunity for near-real-time disease surveillance, depriving about half of the global population of the benefits of timely response to outbreaks of COVID-19, with similar virus-induced diseases and pandemics foreseen.
The international disparity in these pathogen early warning systems is a wakeup call for the world at large, which aims at halving the volumes of untreated wastewater by 2030 ( of the ).
Six years into the SDG era, the at the national level reveals a gloomy scenario in low-income and lower-middle-income countries, the wastewater treatmentand safe reuse target agreed to in 2015.
With more frequent , a radical rethinking is widely needed, and efficient wastewater management and monitoring must be established in to protect our environment and countless lives.
Establishing wastewater collection and conveyance networks, and equipped with near-real-time diagnostic systems for diseases like COVID-19 are key to in low-income and lower-middle-income countries. Other tactics include implementing effluent standards and offering incentives for households and industrial sectors.
Beyond globally, effective wastewater collection and management in developing countries would yield important resources to offset costs. Wastewater is a of valuable water, nutrients, precious metals, and energy.
It would also food production, livelihoods, ecosystems, climate change adaption and mitigation, and sustainable development.
From every viewpoint, the investment required to properly manage wastewater globally pales by comparison to the multidimensional benefits available.
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Suggested citation: Qadir Manzoor. "Needed in the Global South: Wastewater Collection for COVID-19 Detection," 糖心Vlog破解版, 糖心Vlog破解版 Centre, 糖心Vlog破解版-INWEH, 2021-10-05, /article/needed-global-south-wastewater-collection-covid-19-detection.
