Application of Skimmed-Milk Flocculation Method for Wastewater Surveillance of COVID-19 in Kathmandu, Nepal

Author:

Tandukar Sarmila1ORCID,Thakali Ocean1ORCID,Tiwari Ananda2ORCID,Baral Rakshya3ORCID,Malla Bikash4ORCID,Haramoto Eiji4ORCID,Shakya Jivan5,Tuladhar Reshma5,Joshi Dev Raj5ORCID,Sharma Bhawana6,Shrestha Bhushan Raj6,Sherchan Samendra P.13457ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Organization for Public Health and Environmental Management, Lalitpur 44700, Nepal

2. Expert Microbiology Research Unit, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, 70701 Kuopio, Finland

3. Center of Research Excellence in Wastewater Based Epidemiology, Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD 21251, USA

4. Interdisciplinary Center for River Basin Environment, University of Yamanashi, 4-3-11 Takeda, Kofu 400-8511, Yamanashi, Japan

5. Central Department of Microbiology, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu 46000, Nepal

6. Environment and Public Health Organization, Kathmandu 44600, Nepal

7. Department of Environmental Health, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA

Abstract

Wastewater surveillance (WS) has been used globally as a complementary tool to monitor the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) throughout the pandemic. However, a concern about the appropriateness of WS in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) exists due to low sewer coverage and expensive viral concentration methods. In this study, influent wastewater samples (n = 63) collected from two wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) of the Kathmandu Valley between March 2021 and February 2022 were concentrated using the economical skimmed-milk flocculation method (SMFM). The presence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was tested by qPCR using assays that target the nucleocapsid (N) and envelope (E) genes. Overall, 84% (53/63) of the total samples were positive for SARS-CoV-2 according to at least one of the tested assays, with concentrations ranging from 3.5 to 8.3 log10 gene copies/L, indicating the effectiveness of the SMFM. No correlation was observed between the total number of COVID-19 cases and SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations in wastewater collected from the two WWTPs (p > 0.05). This finding cautions the prediction of future COVID-19 waves and the estimation of the number of COVID-19 cases based on wastewater concentration in settings with low sewer coverage by WWTPs. Future studies on WS in LMICs are recommended to be conducted by downscaling to sewer drainage, targeting a limited number of houses. Overall, this study supports the notion that SMFM can be an excellent economical virus-concentrating method for WS of COVID-19 in LMICs.

Funder

Path

Publisher

MDPI AG

Cited by 2 articles. 订阅此论文施引文献 订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3