Abstract
The global spread of SARS-CoV-2 has continued to be a serious concern after WHO declared the virus to be the causative agent of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) a global pandemic. Monitoring of wastewater is a useful tool for assessing community prevalence given that fecal shedding of SARS-CoV-2 occurs in high concentrations by infected individuals, regardless of whether they are asymptomatic or symptomatic. Using tools that are part of wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) approach, combined with molecular analyses, wastewater monitoring becomes a key piece of information used to assess trends and quantify the scale and dynamics of COVID-19 infection in a specific community, municipality, or area of service. This study investigates a six-month long SARS-CoV-2 RNA quantification in influent wastewater from four municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) serving the Charlotte region of North Carolina (NC) using both RT-qPCR and RT-ddPCR platforms. Influent wastewater was analyzed for the nucleocapsid (N) genes N1 and N2. Both RT-qPCR and RT-ddPCR performed well for detection and quantification of SARS-CoV-2 using the N1 target, while for the N2 target RT-ddPCR was more sensitive. SARS-CoV-2 concentration ranged from 10 3 to 10 5 copies/L for all four plants. Both RT-qPCR and RT-ddPCR showed a significant positive correlation between SARS-CoV-2 concentrations and the 7-day rolling average of clinically reported COVID-19 cases when lagging 5 to 12 days (ρ = 0.52-0.92, p < 0.001-0.02). A major finding of this study is that RT-qPCR and RT-ddPCR generated SARS-CoV-2 data that was positively correlated (ρ = 0.569, p < 0.0001) and can be successfully used to monitor SARS-CoV-2 signals across the WWTP of different sizes and metropolitan service functions without significant anomalies.
Keywords: COVID-19; RT-ddPCR; RT-qPCR; SARS-CoV-2; Wastewater; Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE).
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, RT-qPCR, wastewater, wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE), RT-ddPCR, 【초록키워드】 Treatment, coronavirus disease, Coronavirus disease 2019, Epidemiology, virus, global pandemic, Spread, Prevalence, RT-qPCR, wastewater, Asymptomatic, plants, COVID-19 infection, nucleocapsid, qPCR, symptomatic, Community, WHO, monitoring, SARS-CoV-2 RNA, plant, information, quantification, function, Concentration, fecal, influent, causative agent, COVID-19 case, infected individuals, positive correlation, average, North, anomalies, molecular analyses, service, MONITOR, N1 and N2, approach, analyzed, performed, reported, clinically, occur, ranged, positively correlated, 【제목키워드】 Epidemiology, Variation, North,