Community Wastewater-Based Surveillance Can Be a Cost-Effective Approach to Track COVID-19 Outbreak in Low-Resource Settings: Feasibility Assessment for Ethiopia Context

Wastewater surveillance systems have become an important component of COVID-19 outbreak monitoring in high-income settings. However, its use in most low-income settings has not been well-studied. This study assessed the feasibility and utility of wastewater surveillance system to monitor SARS-CoV-2 RNA in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The study was conducted at nine Membrane Bio-reactor (MBR) wastewater processing plants. The samples were collected in two separate time series. Wastewater samples and known leftover RT-PCR tested nasopharyngeal swabs were processed using two extraction protocols with different sample conditions. SARS-CoV-2 wastewater RT-PCR testing was conducted using RIDA GENE SARS-CoV-2 RUO protocol for wastewater SARS-CoV-2 RNA testing. Wastewater SARS-CoV-2 RNA RT-PCR protocol adaptation, optimization, and detection were conducted in an Addis Ababa, Ethiopia context. Samples collected during the first time series, when the national COVID-19 case load was low, were all negative. Conversely, samples collected during the second time series were all positive, coinciding with the highest daily reported new cases of COVID-19 in Ethiopia. The wastewater-based SARS-CoV-2 surveillance approach is feasible for Addis Ababa. The COVID-19 wastewater based epidemiological approach can potentially fill the evidence gap in distribution and dynamics of COVID-19 in Ethiopia and other low-income settings.