Israel Scientists Are Testing Sewage To Check Spread Of COVID-19 And Stop Second Wave
A team of scientists in Israel has conducted nationwide sewage sampling for Coronavirus remains to better detect the presence of the COVID-19 in communities
Several teams of scientists have found that sewage-monitoring proves to be a much more effective testing method than the individual swab test when it comes to detecting a community spread of the Coronavirus.
Israel, will now be appointing this method, too, in an effort to monitor and prevent the resurgence of a second wave of COVID-19 disease.
Reuters
A team of scientists already has a headstart on this as it has been monitoring the nation¡¯s excrement during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. Now it wants it to be a nationwide effort to detect any possible future outbreaks early on.
¡°Once we¡¯ve established this, we can use it as an early warning system against a second wave,¡± Oded Nir, of Ben Gurion University¡¯s Department of Desalination & Water Treatment, told The Times of Israel.
The idea is to test the level of genetic material or proteins of the COVID 19 virus found in feces.
(Representative Image: Reuters)
A big advantage of sewage-monitoring is that it provides a quick and inexpensive way of mass testing, thus providing a broad picture of the entire community more easily than individual swab testing.
That, however, does not mean that it is enough on its own. Swab testing on individual suspects would still have to be carried out but the data through sewage-monitoring methods can help consolidate those efforts in a community.
The concept has been used before in different countries across the world. Biobot, a Massachusetts based Wastewater Epidemiology firm, has conducted a similar study through sewage monitoring on the spread of Coronavirus across cities.
(Representative Image: Reuters)
The Israeli researchers, however, claim that they have come up with the most accurate process to date for finding out the level of coronavirus based upon sewage analysis.
Another big plus for the method is that traces of the Coronavirus can be found in faeces just three days after infection, confirms Ariel Kushmaro, the lead scholar on the Israeli team, head of Ben Gurion University¡¯s biotechnology engineering lab. Monitoring sewage also better identifies ¡°silent carriers,¡± who do not show any symptoms of the virus and do not know that they have it.
The team has shared its method on an open-source platform for others to replicate it internationally.
