Wastewater surveillance of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 in open drains of two Indian megacities captures evolutionary lineage transitions: a zonation approach

• Published in: Environmental science and pollution research international Vol. 31; no. 37; pp. 49670 - 49681
• Main Authors: Zambre, Saee, Katarmal, Poonam, Pawar, Shubhankar, Dawkhar, Snehal, Iyer, Parvati, Rajput, Vinay, Kadam, Pradnya, Bhalerao, Unnati, Tupekar, Manisha, Shah, Priyanki, Karmodiya, Krishanpal, Dharne, Mahesh, Roy, Bishnudeo, Koraktar, Santosh
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.08.2024; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Aquatic Pollution; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Drains; Earth and Environmental Science; Ecotoxicology; Environment; Environmental Chemistry; Environmental Health; Gene sequencing; Megacities; Monitoring; Nucleic acids; Pathogens; Population studies; Real time; Research Article; Ribonucleic acid; RNA; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Surveillance; Viral diseases; Waste Water Technology; Wastewater; Water Management; Water Pollution Control; Water sampling; Zonation; India; COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; Pathogen variant identification; Open drain samples; Wastewater-based epidemiology; Viral copy number; Early warning system
• ISSN: 1614-7499; 0944-1344; 1614-7499
• DOI: 10.1007/s11356-024-34448-7

Wastewater-based environmental surveillance (WBES) has been proven as proxy tool for monitoring nucleic acids of pathogens shed by infected population before clinical outcomes. The poor sewershed network of low to middle-income countries (LMICs) leads to most of the wastewater flow through open drains. We studied the effectiveness of WBES using open drain samples to monitor the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 variants in 2 megacities of India having dense population through zonation approach. Samples from 28 locations spanned into 5 zones of Pune region, Maharashtra, India, were collected on a weekly basis during October 2021 to July 2022. Out of 1115 total processed samples, 303 (~ 27%) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. The periodical rise and fall in the percentage positivity of the samples was found to be in sync with the abundance of SARS-CoV-2 RNA and the reported COVID-19 active cases for Pune city. Sequencing of the RNA obtained from wastewater samples confirmed the presence of SARS-CoV-2. Of 337 sequences, lineage identification for 242 samples revealed 265 distinct SARS-CoV-2 variants including 10 highly transmissible ones. Importantly, transition from Delta to Omicron variant could be detected in wastewater samples 2 weeks prior to any clinically reported Omicron cases in India. Thus, this study demonstrates the usefulness of open drain samples for real-time monitoring of a viral pathogen’s evolutionary dynamics and could be implemented in LMICs.