SARS-CoV-2 surveillance in untreated wastewater: first detection in a low-resource community in Buenos Aires, Argentina

IGLEASIAS, NESTOR GABRIEL; GEBHARD, L.; CARBALLEDA, JUAN MANUEL; AIELLO, IGNACIO; RECALDE, EMILIANO ; TERNY, GABRIEL ; AMBROSOLIO, SILVINA; L ARCO, GABRIELA; KONFINO, JONATAN; BRARDINELLI, JUAN IGNACIO

Pan American Journal of Public Health

PAHO

Año: 2021

1680-5348

Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) in a brief report about the status of environmental surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 indicated that approaches are needed that can be applied in lower-resource settings, where a greater proportion of the population is not connected to sewers and instead uses pit toilets or septic tanks. Possibilities include testing surface water contaminated by sewage. In this study we measured SARS-CoV-2 RNA from a surface water source in a low-income settlement. We observe for this community that measurements of SARS-CoV-2 concentrations in surface water contaminated by sewage can be considered as an estimation of changes in COVID-19 prevalence on a population level.