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Wastewater-based monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 at UK airports and its potential role in international public health surveillance

It is well established that air travel plays a key role in the global spread of many enteric and respiratory diseases, including COVID-19. Even with travel restrictions (e.g. mask wearing, negative COVID-19 test prior to departure), SARS-CoV-2 may be transmitted by asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic in...

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Autores principales: Farkas, Kata, Williams, Rachel, Alex-Sanders, Natasha, Grimsley, Jasmine M. S., Pântea, Igor, Wade, Matthew J., Woodhall, Nick, Jones, Davey L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10021541/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36963000
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0001346
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author Farkas, Kata
Williams, Rachel
Alex-Sanders, Natasha
Grimsley, Jasmine M. S.
Pântea, Igor
Wade, Matthew J.
Woodhall, Nick
Jones, Davey L.
author_facet Farkas, Kata
Williams, Rachel
Alex-Sanders, Natasha
Grimsley, Jasmine M. S.
Pântea, Igor
Wade, Matthew J.
Woodhall, Nick
Jones, Davey L.
author_sort Farkas, Kata
collection PubMed
description It is well established that air travel plays a key role in the global spread of many enteric and respiratory diseases, including COVID-19. Even with travel restrictions (e.g. mask wearing, negative COVID-19 test prior to departure), SARS-CoV-2 may be transmitted by asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic individuals carrying the virus. Due to the limitation of current clinical surveillance approaches, complementary methods need to be developed to allow estimation of the frequency of SARS-CoV-2 entry across international borders. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) represents one such approach, allowing the unbiased sampling of SARS-CoV-2 carriage by passenger cohorts entering via airports. In this study, we monitored sewage in samples from terminals (n = 150) and aircraft (n = 32) at three major international airports in the UK for 1–3 weeks in March 2022. As the raw samples were more turbid than typical municipal wastewater, we used beef extract treatment followed by polyethylene glycol (PEG) precipitation to concentrate viruses, followed by reverse transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 and a faecal indicator virus, crAssphage. All samples taken from sewers at the arrival terminals of Heathrow and Bristol airports, and 85% of samples taken from sites at Edinburgh airport, were positive for SARS-CoV-2. This suggests a high COVID-19 prevalence among passengers and/or airport staff members. Samples derived from aircraft also showed 93% SARS-CoV-2 positivity. No difference in viral prevalence was found before and after COVID-19 travel restrictions were lifted. Our results suggest that WBE is a useful tool for monitoring the global transfer rate of human pathogens and other disease-causing agents across international borders and should form part of wider international efforts to monitor and contain the spread of future disease outbreaks.
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spelling pubmed-100215412023-03-17 Wastewater-based monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 at UK airports and its potential role in international public health surveillance Farkas, Kata Williams, Rachel Alex-Sanders, Natasha Grimsley, Jasmine M. S. Pântea, Igor Wade, Matthew J. Woodhall, Nick Jones, Davey L. PLOS Glob Public Health Research Article It is well established that air travel plays a key role in the global spread of many enteric and respiratory diseases, including COVID-19. Even with travel restrictions (e.g. mask wearing, negative COVID-19 test prior to departure), SARS-CoV-2 may be transmitted by asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic individuals carrying the virus. Due to the limitation of current clinical surveillance approaches, complementary methods need to be developed to allow estimation of the frequency of SARS-CoV-2 entry across international borders. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) represents one such approach, allowing the unbiased sampling of SARS-CoV-2 carriage by passenger cohorts entering via airports. In this study, we monitored sewage in samples from terminals (n = 150) and aircraft (n = 32) at three major international airports in the UK for 1–3 weeks in March 2022. As the raw samples were more turbid than typical municipal wastewater, we used beef extract treatment followed by polyethylene glycol (PEG) precipitation to concentrate viruses, followed by reverse transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 and a faecal indicator virus, crAssphage. All samples taken from sewers at the arrival terminals of Heathrow and Bristol airports, and 85% of samples taken from sites at Edinburgh airport, were positive for SARS-CoV-2. This suggests a high COVID-19 prevalence among passengers and/or airport staff members. Samples derived from aircraft also showed 93% SARS-CoV-2 positivity. No difference in viral prevalence was found before and after COVID-19 travel restrictions were lifted. Our results suggest that WBE is a useful tool for monitoring the global transfer rate of human pathogens and other disease-causing agents across international borders and should form part of wider international efforts to monitor and contain the spread of future disease outbreaks. Public Library of Science 2023-01-19 /pmc/articles/PMC10021541/ /pubmed/36963000 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0001346 Text en © 2023 Farkas et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Farkas, Kata
Williams, Rachel
Alex-Sanders, Natasha
Grimsley, Jasmine M. S.
Pântea, Igor
Wade, Matthew J.
Woodhall, Nick
Jones, Davey L.
Wastewater-based monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 at UK airports and its potential role in international public health surveillance
title Wastewater-based monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 at UK airports and its potential role in international public health surveillance
title_full Wastewater-based monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 at UK airports and its potential role in international public health surveillance
title_fullStr Wastewater-based monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 at UK airports and its potential role in international public health surveillance
title_full_unstemmed Wastewater-based monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 at UK airports and its potential role in international public health surveillance
title_short Wastewater-based monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 at UK airports and its potential role in international public health surveillance
title_sort wastewater-based monitoring of sars-cov-2 at uk airports and its potential role in international public health surveillance
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10021541/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36963000
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0001346
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