Germany tests the water for Covid warning system
A €3.7 million project is underway to find out whether an early-warning system to detected Covid-19 in wastewater could be implemented across Germany.
Coronaviruses can be detected in wastewater days before the first symptoms of the disease develop in humans. This means it is possible to work out the number of infections in a population much more quickly and precisely by analysing sewage and wastewater.
This science is known as wastewater-based epidemiology and is developing rapidly. It can also help identify new Covid-19 variants early, along with the pattern of their spread.
Scientists at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) now plan to leverage this potential and to find out whether a wastewater-based Covid-19 early-warning system can be implemented in Germany, in an EU funded project.
The project "provides the opportunity to pool the scientific know-how and expertise in wastewater monitoring throughout Germany and to systematically use it to contain the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Dr Verena Höckele from KIT says that the Systematic Monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 in Wastewater Project "provides the opportunity to pool the scientific know-how and expertise in wastewater monitoring throughout Germany and to systematically use it to contain the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Twenty wastewater treatment facilities in Germany will successively join the one-year pilot project, which started in February 2022. Twice a week wastewater samples will be taken from the flow into the sewage treatment plants over a period of 24 hours.
Once processed, the samples are subjected to PCR - polymerase chain reaction - testing to detect the presence of the virus. The results are then linked to the pandemic data of the local health authorities and incorporated in the assessment of the pandemic situation, wherever possible.
Rapid detection
Professor Harald Horn, head of the Water Chemistry & Water Technology Department of KIT’s Engler-Bunte Institute said, “The process to determine the frequency and dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 viruses based on municipal wastewater samples has already been tested successfully in Germany within the framework of several small research projects.”
He says he is convinced that it will not only provide better estimates of the real number of infections, but will help identify the spread of variants and mutations more rapidly compared to testing individuals.
Once the pilot tests are complete, recommendations will be made on a wastewater monitoring scheme suitable for Germany. Similar systems would also be suited for other pathogens such as polio and influenza, and have already been deployed in the Netherlands, Canada and Australia.