{"id":66633,"date":"2020-06-03T16:38:20","date_gmt":"2020-06-03T20:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=66633"},"modified":"2025-10-17T18:21:41","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T22:21:41","slug":"research-wastewater-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/research-wastewater-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Carleton Researchers Checking Wastewater for Signs of COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Carleton Researchers Checking Wastewater for Signs of COVID-19\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

One of the few reassuring science stories circulating since the coronavirus pandemic abruptly threw Canada into lockdown mode in mid-March is that there is no evidence<\/a> of people getting sick through contact with the contagion in water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That doesn\u2019t mean that SARS-CoV-2 \u2014 the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019, or COVID-19 \u2014 isn\u2019t present in wastewater, rivers and lakes, just that the virus is not contagious in water, especially drinking water than has been filtered and disinfected by treatment plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Prof.
Prof. Banu \u00d6rmeci<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater does present an opportunity for researchers to monitor its incidence in a community \u2014 and a project led by Carleton Civil and Environmental Engineering<\/a> Prof. Banu \u00d6rmeci<\/a>, the Jarislowsky Chair in Water and Global Health<\/a> and director of the university\u2019s Global Water Institute<\/a>, aims to help develop an \u201cearly warning system\u201d that could alert public health authorities about an outbreak before people start to show symptoms.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cThis research could lead to a great non-invasive tool for COVID-19 surveillance and monitoring,\u201d says \u00d6rmeci.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cIt could give us a very good idea about the prevalence of the disease in a community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Work Continues Outside Lab<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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\u00d6rmeci and Carleton research associate Richard Kibbee will be testing samples of both raw sewage and processed water obtained from treatment plants. They\u2019re looking for SARS-CoV-2\u2019s genetic material, its viral RNA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This will allow them to establish the occurrence, fate and persistence of SARS-CoV-2 before and after treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although \u00d6rmeci and Kibbee don\u2019t have access to their lab right now, they are already collecting and freezing samples that can be analyzed later to provide baseline data from the period when the virus was at peak, as well as gathering ongoing real-time data in the weeks ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Richard
Richard Kibbee<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s inconvenient to not have lab access right now,\u201d says Kibbee, \u201cbut that doesn\u2019t stop the research. It\u2019s important to archive the samples now.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cWe have the facilities and the expertise to work on this project,\u201d he continues.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cWe have the molecular and microbiological tools to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne treatment plant can capture wastewater from more than one million people,\u201d Gertjan Medema, a microbiologist at KWR Water Research Institute in Nieuwegein, the Netherlands, says in an article in Nature\u2019s news section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStudies have also shown that SARS-CoV-2 can appear in feces within three days of infection,\u201d the story says, \u201cwhich is much sooner than the time taken for people to develop symptoms severe enough for them to seek hospital care \u2014 up to two weeks \u2014 and get an official diagnosis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the past, another Dutch research centre, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, has successfully \u201cmonitored sewage to detect outbreaks of norovirus, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, poliovirus and measles.\u201d And according to University of Arizona environmental microbiologist, Charles Gerba, \u201cWastewater monitoring has been used for decades to assess the success of vaccination campaigns against poliovirus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Prof.<\/figure>\n\n\n

Preparing for the Next Wave<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Because a potential coronavirus vaccine is months if not years away, and because SARS-CoV-2 will likely come back in waves, \u201cthere is a need to keep an eye on the virus and to watch for an increase in levels,\u201d says \u00d6rmeci, \u201cso we can stop outbreaks before they spike up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are able to detect the presence of the virus in the community before there is a confirmed case of the disease in the community,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cThere are a couple of weeks that are extremely critical. Having this advance forecast will allow health-care practitioners to be aware and ready.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u00d6rmeci and Kibbee are working with industry and government partners and are seeking additional support for this research, which meshes with other wastewater and drinking water projects they\u2019ve collaborated on over the last five years, including work on waterborne pathogens and effective ways to disinfect contaminated water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All data and findings from this work will be synchronized with results from at least a dozen similar studies around the world, says \u00d6rmeci, who is part of the International Water Association\u2019s COVID-19 task force<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is part of a widespread global effort to share as much epidemiological information about SARS-CoV-2 as possible, she explains. Because the virus is new, methods that will help researchers understand it and deal with it are still being developed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And even though contracting coronavirus through water is not a concern, projects such as this one shine a spotlight on the need to safeguard one of our most vital resources.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cWe need to protect the quality of our water supply and do a better job with wastewater treatment,\u201d says \u00d6rmeci.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cI would like to thank the Jarislowsky Foundation for their support and for providing the resources that enabled this research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWaterborne pathogens and chemicals are usually the main issues, but our focus has shifted right now to monitoring of emerging pathogens like SARS-CoV-2 that we know very little about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Carleton<\/figure>\n\n\n

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\nMore Stories<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the few reassuring science stories circulating since the coronavirus pandemic abruptly threw Canada into lockdown mode in mid-March is that there is no evidence of people getting sick through contact with the contagion in water. That doesn\u2019t mean that SARS-CoV-2 \u2014 the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019, or COVID-19 \u2014 isn\u2019t present […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":66664,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[13],"cu_story_tag":[1918],"class_list":["post-66633","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-research-discovery","cu_story_tag-faculty-of-engineering-and-design"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"blueprint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/66633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/66633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98575,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/66633\/revisions\/98575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=66633"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=66633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}