Austria started decoding the genome of coronaviruses from wastewater samples from domestic sewage treatment plants as early as 2020. These analyzes are now part of domestic pandemic monitoring and would reflect variant dynamics in astonishing detail and precision, according to a team led by Andreas Bergthaler of the Medical University of Vienna and researchers from Innsbruck. The scientists report that “pretty little” is currently happening with the variants – apart from BA.5 (an omicron variant).
In Austria, virus analyzes in wastewater were developed by researchers from the University of Innsbruck, the Technical University of Vienna and the Medical University of Innsbruck in the early phase of the pandemic. The Ministries of Education and Health have therefore set up a national monitoring system for sewage treatment plants. Some 100 sewage treatment plants across Austria were regularly sampled to get an overview of the local infection process and the circulating corona variants.
Currently 24 sewage treatment plants are monitored
But at the end of the school year, the so-called school site monitoring came to an end, which Bergthaler had criticized in early June because he feared there was a risk “that the evidence obtained from the wastewater analyzes would tend to stagnate.” What remains – as it stands – is the oversight funded by the health department of the 24 largest sewage treatment plants in Austria, whose catchment areas cover about half of the population.
For the current study, the scientists used sequencing and analysis data from a total of 3,413 wastewater samples from more than 90 municipal watersheds and sewage treatment plants, taken between December 2020 and February 2022. Using specially developed software, the researchers were able to determine the spatio-temporal frequency of virus variants from the wastewater samples.
These data were then compared with the records of more than 311,000 individual cases, or proven Covid 19 infections, together with the infection epidemiologists of the Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES).
Exact mirror of the variants of SARS-CoV-2
The results would confirm for the first time worldwide that the wastewater analyzes provide a very accurate overview of the pandemic situation across a country and reflect the spread of virus variants in the population, the researchers report in the journal “Nature Biotechnology.”
“For every week and every catchment area in which, according to the epidemiological reporting system, a certain variant occurred at least once, we see a corresponding signal in the wastewater in 86 percent of the samples from the same week. Conversely, we see variants in about three percent of wastewater samples that escaped the patient-based system,” said Fabian Amman of the Research Center for Molecular Medicine (CeMM).
The researchers emphasize that the data obtained from wastewater analyzes would provide a basis for predicting newly emerging variants and make it easier to calculate the reproductive benefit of questionable variants. Another advantage is that the infection process in people who have no symptoms or who do not use the test offer can be recorded.
Source: Krone
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
