Loading…

Inferring hospital admissions from SARS-CoV-2 virus loads in wastewater in The Netherlands, August 2020 – February 2022

Wastewater-based surveillance enables tracking of SARS-CoV-2 circulation at a local scale in near-real time. Here we investigate the relation between virus loads and the number of hospital admissions in the Netherlands. Inferred virus loads from August 2020 until February 2022 in each of the 344 Dut...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Science of the total environment 2024-02, Vol.912, p.168703-168703, Article 168703
Main Authors: Hetebrij, Wouter A., de Roda Husman, Ana Maria, Nagelkerke, Erwin, van der Beek, Rudolf F.H.J., van Iersel, Senna C.J.L., Breuning, Titus G.V., Lodder, Willemijn J., van Boven, Michiel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Wastewater-based surveillance enables tracking of SARS-CoV-2 circulation at a local scale in near-real time. Here we investigate the relation between virus loads and the number of hospital admissions in the Netherlands. Inferred virus loads from August 2020 until February 2022 in each of the 344 Dutch municipalities are analysed in a Bayesian multilevel Poisson regression to relate virus loads to daily age-stratified (in groups of 20 years) hospital admissions. Covariates include municipal vaccination coverages stratified by age and dose (first, second, and booster) and prevalence of the circulating coronavirus variants (wildtype, Alpha, Delta, and Omicron (BA.1 and BA.2)). Our model captures the relation between hospital admissions and virus loads well. Estimated hospitalisation rates per 1,000,000 persons per day at a virus load of 1013 particles range from 0.18 (95 % Prediction Interval (PI): 0.046–0.48) in children (0–19 years) to 20.1 (95 % PI: 9.46–36.8) in the oldest age group (80 years and older) in an unvaccinated population with only wildtype SARS-CoV-2 circulation. The analyses indicate a nearly twofold (1.92 (95 % PI: 1.78–2.05)) decrease in the expected number of hospitalisations at a given virus load between the Alpha and the Omicron variant. Our analyses show that virus load estimates in wastewater are closely related to the expected number of hospitalisations and provide an attractive tool to detect increased SARS-CoV-2 circulation at a local scale, even when there are few hospital admissions. Our analyses enable integration of data at the municipality level into meaningful conversion rates to translate virus loads at a local level into expected numbers of hospital admissions, which would allow for a better interpretation of virus loads detected in wastewater. [Display omitted] •A model translates virus loads to hospitalisations on the municipality level.•Variant prevalence and age-stratified vaccination coverage are taken into account.•Clear upwards trend in expected hospitalisations in older age groups.•Nearly twofold difference between Alpha and Omicron variants.
ISSN:0048-9697
1879-1026
DOI:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.168703