TY - JOUR
T1 - Population infection estimation from wastewater surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 in Nagpur, India during the second pandemic wave
AU - Acheampong, Edward
AU - Husain, Aliabbas A.
AU - Dudani, Hemanshi
AU - Nayak, Amit R.
AU - Nag, Aditi
AU - Meena, Ekta
AU - Shrivastava, Sandeep K.
AU - McClure, Patrick
AU - Tarr, Alexander W.
AU - Crooks, Colin
AU - Lade, Ranjana
AU - Gomes, Rachel L.
AU - Singer, Andrew
AU - Kumar, Saravana
AU - Bhatnagar, Tarun
AU - Arora, Sudipti
AU - Kashyap, Rajpal Singh
AU - Monaghan, Tanya M.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 Acheampong et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2024/5
Y1 - 2024/5
N2 - Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has emerged as an effective environmental surveillance tool for predicting severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV- 2) disease outbreaks in high-income countries (HICs) with centralized sewage infrastructure. However, few studies have applied WBE alongside epidemic disease modelling to estimate the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in low-resource settings. This study aimed to explore the feasibility of collecting untreated wastewater samples from rural and urban catchment areas of Nagpur district, to detect and quantify SARS-CoV-2 using real-time qPCR, to compare geographic differences in viral loads, and to integrate the wastewater data into a modified Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Confirmed Positives-Recovered (SEIPR) model. Of the 983 wastewater samples analyzed for SARS-CoV-2 RNA, we detected significantly higher sample positivity rates, 43.7% (95% confidence interval (CI) 40.1, 47.4) and 30.4% (95% CI 24.66, 36.66), and higher viral loads for the urban compared with rural samples, respectively. The Basic reproductive number, R0, positively correlated with population density and negatively correlated with humidity, a proxy for rainfall and dilution of waste in the sewers. The SEIPR model estimated the rate of unreported coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases at the start of the wave as 13.97 [95% CI (10.17, 17.0)] times that of confirmed cases, representing a material difference in cases and healthcare resource burden. Wastewater surveillance might prove to be a more reliable way to prepare for surges in COVID-19 cases during future waves for authorities.
AB - Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has emerged as an effective environmental surveillance tool for predicting severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV- 2) disease outbreaks in high-income countries (HICs) with centralized sewage infrastructure. However, few studies have applied WBE alongside epidemic disease modelling to estimate the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in low-resource settings. This study aimed to explore the feasibility of collecting untreated wastewater samples from rural and urban catchment areas of Nagpur district, to detect and quantify SARS-CoV-2 using real-time qPCR, to compare geographic differences in viral loads, and to integrate the wastewater data into a modified Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Confirmed Positives-Recovered (SEIPR) model. Of the 983 wastewater samples analyzed for SARS-CoV-2 RNA, we detected significantly higher sample positivity rates, 43.7% (95% confidence interval (CI) 40.1, 47.4) and 30.4% (95% CI 24.66, 36.66), and higher viral loads for the urban compared with rural samples, respectively. The Basic reproductive number, R0, positively correlated with population density and negatively correlated with humidity, a proxy for rainfall and dilution of waste in the sewers. The SEIPR model estimated the rate of unreported coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases at the start of the wave as 13.97 [95% CI (10.17, 17.0)] times that of confirmed cases, representing a material difference in cases and healthcare resource burden. Wastewater surveillance might prove to be a more reliable way to prepare for surges in COVID-19 cases during future waves for authorities.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85194895610&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0303529
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0303529
M3 - Article
C2 - 38809825
AN - SCOPUS:85194895610
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 19
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 5 May
M1 - e0303529
ER -
