June 22, 2020
WBE Continues to Evolve and Aid in COVID Fight

Wastewater-Based Epidemiology (WBE) is not new and has been used in the past to detect the polio virus and even community drug use by sampling and analyzing wastewater.  The ability to focus that detection on certain sewer sheds and even certain large facilities such as hospitals promises to be a viable tool for medical epidemiologists to employ in
predicting the second and third waves of the SARS-CoV-2 virus outbreaks being predicted by many experts. WBE is now being used all around the world to look for the COVID virus. 

In the United States, EPA is leading efforts to develop WBE into a coronavirus surveillance tool.  EPA’s Office of Research & Development has teamed up with the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention and the City of Cincinnati on a 6-month research pilot.  Cincinnati was chosen because it has a combined wastewater and storm sewer system.  That is one of the questions researchers have: how does storm water dilution or industrial inputs impact the testing results.  They aim to know how long the virus lives in waste and how best to sample and analyze for the virus’ RNA found in feces and wastewater. 

The Canadian Water Network has created the Covid-19 Wastewater Coalition an informal partnership of municipalities, utilities, public health organizations and researchers.  The Coalition has a team working on WBE in Montreal, another Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) community.  They are looking to account for snow melt in that study.  The team is experiencing some chemical supply issues with the same chemicals being needed for virus testing. But researchers still see the value in taking the time to prepare the WBE tool as well as the testing and analysis protocols so that data can be compared with other studies for further fine-tuning in preparation of the second wave of COVID.   

The Water Research Foundation (WRF) held a virtual congressional briefing on May 21st titled “Environmental Surveillance of the Genetic Fingerprint of COVID-19 in Sewersheds” which followed WRF’s virtual research summit on the topic held in late April. WRF has also initiated a COVID-19 research effort to be focused on: interlaboratory ad methods assessments; stability of genetic signal in wastewater matrix, and impacts of storage and pre-treatment methods on signal strength.  Requests for
Proposal are expected to be published soon.

WBE is being used at the county and local levels to detect outbreaks like the one in Cache County, Utah.  Especially now as governments try to reopen their economies, WBE can provide critical lead time for public health officials to prepare for increased hospitalizations and can inform recommendations for personal protective equipment and other virus containment measures.  Numerous Northeast facilities are participating in WBE pilots along with the Massachusetts-based company Biobot that is working to perfect the technology.

There are more and more article being written about WBE as the technology evolves to fight COVID.  One of the better television news reports about WBE comes from CNN in Germany.  The 3-minute report does a good job explaining WBE, its challenges and promise for aiding in the Coronavirus response.  Once again, wastewater treatment aids in improving public health  – and not just by destroying the virus in water.