SARS-CoV-2 RNA in Wastewater Was Highly Correlated With the Number of COVID-19 Cases During the Fourth and Fifth Pandemic Wave in Kobe City, Japan

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the cause of the current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and associated respiratory infections, has been detected in the feces of patients. Therefore, determining SARS-CoV-2 RNA levels in sewage may help to predict the number...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Frontiers in microbiology 2022-06, Vol.13, p.892447-892447
Main Authors: Tanimoto, Yoshihiko, Ito, Erika, Miyamoto, Sonoko, Mori, Ai, Nomoto, Ryohei, Nakanishi, Noriko, Oka, Naohiro, Morimoto, Takao, Iwamoto, Tomotada
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
COVID-19
environmental surveillance
Microbiology
SARS-CoV-2
sewage
wastewater
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Summary:Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the cause of the current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and associated respiratory infections, has been detected in the feces of patients. Therefore, determining SARS-CoV-2 RNA levels in sewage may help to predict the number of infected people within the area. In this study, we quantified SARS-CoV-2 RNA copy number using reverse transcription quantitative real-time PCR with primers and probes targeting the N gene, which allows the detection of both wild-type and variant strain of SARS-CoV-2 in sewage samples from two wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in Kobe City, Japan, during the fourth and fifth pandemic waves of COVID-19 between February 2021 and October 2021. The wastewater samples were concentrated centrifugation, yielding a pelleted solid fraction and a supernatant, which was subjected to polyethylene glycol (PEG) precipitation. The SARS-CoV-2 RNA was significantly and frequently detected in the solid fraction than in the PEG-precipitated fraction. In addition, the copy number in the solid fraction was highly correlated with the number of COVID-19 cases in the WWTP basin (WWTP-A:  = 0.8205,  
ISSN:1664-302X
1664-302X
DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2022.892447