Predicting the Wave of COVID-19 in Communities Wastewater as an Important Monitoring Tool

The coronavirus is present in the gastrointestinal tract of several patients with COVID-19 and finds its way in the faeces and subsequently in sewage and wastewater. Research indicates that monitoring wastewater is a better strategy for detecting the viral infections in any population. Dr Paromita Chakraborty and Akanksha Manish say that the ongoing pandemic situation can be utilized to test whether wastewater based epidemiology (WBE) can act as an effective technique to observe and manage public health globally. WBE can be an important tool as most infections are thought to be asymptomatic or undiagnosed infections. WBE can provide critical knowledge on identification of hotspots and understanding the dynamics of the infection.

- Dr Paromita Chakraborty and Akanksha Manish

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has triggered the current global pandemic. Infection induced by this novel virus made of 4 proteins and a strand of ribonucleic acid (RNA) leads to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), thereby, impacting the global ongoing efforts towards achieving many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Breaking human transmissibility of this new virus comes down to the practice of good hand hygiene. Frequent disinfection is a must for arresting the contagion from spreading. The countries with least resilient water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure were observed to be the worst affected. The joint monitoring report of WHO-UNICEF (JMP 2019 Update) has revealed stark realities that globally around 2.2 billion people lack safe drinking water, 4.2 billion people live without access to adequate sanitation, and 3 billion people lack basic handwashing facilities at home. Major percentage of the 3 billion stems from South Asian and Sub-Saharan African countries which houses 85 per cent of the world’s poor population with fragile health systems along with the absence of trained personnel. Worse still, majority of this population consists of elderly, disabled, displaced and indigenous people making them the most vulnerable lot (WSSCC, 2020). As per the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), in India the population without handwashing facilities has been 39.8 per cent (NFHS-4, 2015–16).