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Sewage Systems Surveillance for SARS-CoV-2: Identification of Knowledge Gaps, Emerging Threats, and Future Research Needs

The etiological agent for novel coronavirus (COVID-19, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), not only affects the human respiratory system, but also the gastrointestinal tract resulting in gastrointestinal manifestations. The high rate of asymptomatic infected individuals has...

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Autores principales: Amereh, Fatemeh, Negahban-Azar, Masoud, Isazadeh, Siavash, Dabiri, Hossein, Masihi, Najmeh, Jahangiri-rad, Mahsa, Rafiee, Mohammad
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8402176/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34451410
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/pathogens10080946
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author Amereh, Fatemeh
Negahban-Azar, Masoud
Isazadeh, Siavash
Dabiri, Hossein
Masihi, Najmeh
Jahangiri-rad, Mahsa
Rafiee, Mohammad
author_facet Amereh, Fatemeh
Negahban-Azar, Masoud
Isazadeh, Siavash
Dabiri, Hossein
Masihi, Najmeh
Jahangiri-rad, Mahsa
Rafiee, Mohammad
author_sort Amereh, Fatemeh
collection PubMed
description The etiological agent for novel coronavirus (COVID-19, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), not only affects the human respiratory system, but also the gastrointestinal tract resulting in gastrointestinal manifestations. The high rate of asymptomatic infected individuals has challenged the estimation of infection spread based on patients’ surveillance, and thus alternative approaches such as wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) have been proposed. Accordingly, the number of publications on this topic has increased substantially. The present systematic review thus aimed at providing state-of-the-knowledge on the occurrence and existing methods for sampling procedures, detection/quantification of SARS-CoV-2 in sewage samples, as well as anticipating challenges and providing future research direction to improve the current scientific knowledge. Articles were collected from three scientific databases. Only studies reporting measurements of virus in stool, urine, and wastewater samples were included. Results showed that improving the scientific community’s understanding in these avenues is essential if we are to develop appropriate policy and management tools to address this pandemic pointing particularly towards WBE as a new paradigm in public health. It was also evident that standardized protocols are needed to ensure reproducibility and comparability of outcomes. Areas that require the most improvements are sampling procedures, concentration/enrichment, detection, and quantification of virus in wastewater, as well as positive controls. Results also showed that selecting the most accurate population estimation method for WBE studies is still a challenge. While the number of people infected in an area could be approximately estimated based on quantities of virus found in wastewater, these estimates should be cross-checked by other sources of information to draw a more comprehensive conclusion. Finally, wastewater surveillance can be useful as an early warning tool, a management tool, and/or a way for investigating vaccination efficacy and spread of new variants.
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spelling pubmed-84021762021-08-29 Sewage Systems Surveillance for SARS-CoV-2: Identification of Knowledge Gaps, Emerging Threats, and Future Research Needs Amereh, Fatemeh Negahban-Azar, Masoud Isazadeh, Siavash Dabiri, Hossein Masihi, Najmeh Jahangiri-rad, Mahsa Rafiee, Mohammad Pathogens Review The etiological agent for novel coronavirus (COVID-19, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), not only affects the human respiratory system, but also the gastrointestinal tract resulting in gastrointestinal manifestations. The high rate of asymptomatic infected individuals has challenged the estimation of infection spread based on patients’ surveillance, and thus alternative approaches such as wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) have been proposed. Accordingly, the number of publications on this topic has increased substantially. The present systematic review thus aimed at providing state-of-the-knowledge on the occurrence and existing methods for sampling procedures, detection/quantification of SARS-CoV-2 in sewage samples, as well as anticipating challenges and providing future research direction to improve the current scientific knowledge. Articles were collected from three scientific databases. Only studies reporting measurements of virus in stool, urine, and wastewater samples were included. Results showed that improving the scientific community’s understanding in these avenues is essential if we are to develop appropriate policy and management tools to address this pandemic pointing particularly towards WBE as a new paradigm in public health. It was also evident that standardized protocols are needed to ensure reproducibility and comparability of outcomes. Areas that require the most improvements are sampling procedures, concentration/enrichment, detection, and quantification of virus in wastewater, as well as positive controls. Results also showed that selecting the most accurate population estimation method for WBE studies is still a challenge. While the number of people infected in an area could be approximately estimated based on quantities of virus found in wastewater, these estimates should be cross-checked by other sources of information to draw a more comprehensive conclusion. Finally, wastewater surveillance can be useful as an early warning tool, a management tool, and/or a way for investigating vaccination efficacy and spread of new variants. MDPI 2021-07-28 /pmc/articles/PMC8402176/ /pubmed/34451410 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/pathogens10080946 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Amereh, Fatemeh
Negahban-Azar, Masoud
Isazadeh, Siavash
Dabiri, Hossein
Masihi, Najmeh
Jahangiri-rad, Mahsa
Rafiee, Mohammad
Sewage Systems Surveillance for SARS-CoV-2: Identification of Knowledge Gaps, Emerging Threats, and Future Research Needs
title Sewage Systems Surveillance for SARS-CoV-2: Identification of Knowledge Gaps, Emerging Threats, and Future Research Needs
title_full Sewage Systems Surveillance for SARS-CoV-2: Identification of Knowledge Gaps, Emerging Threats, and Future Research Needs
title_fullStr Sewage Systems Surveillance for SARS-CoV-2: Identification of Knowledge Gaps, Emerging Threats, and Future Research Needs
title_full_unstemmed Sewage Systems Surveillance for SARS-CoV-2: Identification of Knowledge Gaps, Emerging Threats, and Future Research Needs
title_short Sewage Systems Surveillance for SARS-CoV-2: Identification of Knowledge Gaps, Emerging Threats, and Future Research Needs
title_sort sewage systems surveillance for sars-cov-2: identification of knowledge gaps, emerging threats, and future research needs
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8402176/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34451410
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/pathogens10080946
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