The national SARS-CoV-2 wastewater monitoring is being expanded. In the future, 48 instead of the previous 24 sewage treatment plants will be investigated, the Ministry of Health announced on Tuesday. In the summer, virologist Andreas Bergthaler criticized that after the reduction of PCR tests, the testing of WWTP samples for corona was also reduced by phasing out school location monitoring. The expansion will now take place in the coming weeks or months.
As part of the monitoring of the school grounds, samples were taken twice weekly throughout Austria throughout Austria from more than 100 sewage treatment plants with schools in the catchment area to get an overview of the local infection processes and mutations. After this line was phased out at the end of the school year, only the national wastewater monitoring by the Ministry of Health, which previously included Austria’s 24 largest sewage treatment plants, continued.
Fine subdivision possible
This made it possible to map the virus shedding of about 52 percent of the Austrian population. In the future, 59 percent of the Austrian population will be covered by wastewater monitoring. According to the ministry, this expansion to 48 sewage treatment plants allows for a finer subdivision and division of the regions within Austria. This allows regional differences to be recognized even more accurately.
The Ministry of Health emphasized in a broadcast that the National Reference Center for Monitoring SARS-CoV-2 in Wastewater can break down its results on virus load and variant events in even more detail, which is playing an increasingly important role in assessing the corona situation. Because these signals can be collected in the wastewater independently of the test behavior of the population.
Source: Krone
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