Monitoring occurrence of SARS-CoV-2 in school populations: A wastewater-based approach

Clinical testing of children in schools is challenging, with economic implications limiting its frequent use as a monitoring tool of the risks assumed by children and staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, a wastewater-based epidemiology approach has been used to monitor 16 schools (10 primary, 5...

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Published inPloS one Vol. 17; no. 6; p. e0270168
Main Authors Castro-Gutierrez, Victor, Hassard, Francis, Vu, Milan, Leitao, Rodrigo, Burczynska, Beata, Wildeboer, Dirk, Stanton, Isobel, Rahimzadeh, Shadi, Baio, Gianluca, Garelick, Hemda, Hofman, Jan, Kasprzyk-Hordern, Barbara, Kwiatkowska, Rachel, Majeed, Azeem, Priest, Sally, Grimsley, Jasmine, Lundy, Lian, Singer, Andrew C., Di Cesare, Mariachiara
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Public Library of Science 17.06.2022
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Subjects
Analysis
Asymptomatic
Biology and life sciences
Chemical oxygen demand
Child
Children
Confidence intervals
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
COVID-19 - epidemiology
Disease transmission
Epidemiology
Gene frequency
Genes
Health aspects
Health surveillance
Humans
Infections
Laboratories
Medicine and health sciences
Monitoring
Pandemics
People and places
Polyethylene glycol
Population
Public health
Research and analysis methods
Safety and security measures
SARS-CoV-2 - genetics
Schools
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
Social Sciences
United Kingdom
Wastewater
United Kingdom
United Kingdom > UK
England
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Summary:Clinical testing of children in schools is challenging, with economic implications limiting its frequent use as a monitoring tool of the risks assumed by children and staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, a wastewater-based epidemiology approach has been used to monitor 16 schools (10 primary, 5 secondary and 1 post-16 and further education) in England. A total of 296 samples over 9 weeks have been analysed for N1 and E genes using qPCR methods. Of the samples returned, 47.3% were positive for one or both genes with a detection frequency in line with the respective local community. WBE offers a low cost, non-invasive approach for supplementing clinical testing and can provide longitudinal insights that are impractical with traditional clinical testing.
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Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0270168