The story thus far: The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) will provoke wastewater surveillance for 10 viruses throughout 50 cities over the subsequent six months. Currently, 5 cities are being monitored. The transfer is geared toward figuring out any improve in virus development pattern at the earliest, mentioned ICMR head Rajiv Bahl.
What is the plan?
“The next six months will see the scaling up of surveillance across India which will enable us to pick up any rise in virus load in the community. Currently, the COVID-19 virus and polio virus are under surveillance,’’ explained Dr. Bahl. He added that wastewater surveillance will now be used to monitor more commonly reported symptoms caused by several pathogens, such as fever, diarrhoea, acute encephalitis syndrome (inflammation of the brain), and respiratory distress. The ICMR is involved in establishing environmental surveillance for viruses, including the Avian Influenza Virus (AIV) by monitoring surface water and wastewater, particularly in areas with outbreaks, to establish an early warning system.
India also has a robust surveillance system for Influenza-Like Illness (ILI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) through ICMR and the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP). Wastewater and Environmental Surveillance (WES) use samples from sewage, or other environmental waters impacted by human wastewater.
Why is wastewater surveillance vital?
The ICMR has noted that like all countries across the globe, India too is experiencing a significant increase in the emergence and re-emergence of pathogens, including viral, bacterial, and zoonotic diseases. Factors contributing to this pathogen load include population growth, rapid urbanisation, environmental changes, and increased human-animal interaction.
Recently, following the COVID-19 pandemic, Wastewater-Based Epidemiology (WBE) has emerged as an effective tool for the early detection of disease outbreaks. According to experts, WBE can be used as a predictive instrument, capable of providing near-real-time, community-level pathogen surveillance and anticipating and mitigating future pandemics even before the first clinical symptoms are detected. “This approach enables cost-effective, non-invasive, and population-wide monitoring of infectious diseases’ emergence, evolution, and decline. By identifying pathogens in human waste (e.g., viruses and bacteria), WBE delivers real-time insights into infection trends, encompassing data from asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic populations, enabling timely interventions from public health authorities,” in line with an article titled ‘Integrated environmental surveillance: the role of wastewater, air, and surface microbiomes in global health security’.
It added that amongst the key benefits are its capability to embody massive populations, pinpoint transmission hotspots, and facilitate useful resource allocation for containment efforts.
How is it carried out?
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S., folks with sure infections (similar to COVID-19), can shed items of the virus or micro organism once they use the rest room, bathe, wash arms, or launder clothes, even when they don’t have signs. These items of virus or micro organism journey from the bathroom, sink, bathe, or different drain by the sewage system.
So, earlier than wastewater is handled, wastewater operators take samples to ship to the laboratory. Laboratories check the wastewater pattern to detect and report on the differing types of infections that are circulating in a neighborhood. This data is out there in as little as 5 to seven days after waste enters the sewer. Public well being officers use wastewater information to raised perceive illness tendencies in communities and make selections, similar to offering steering on the right way to stop infections or rising testing or vaccination choices.
Where else can the data be used?
Wastewater surveillance is a helpful methodology to gather data and deal with ailments in addition to land-based sources of air pollution. In addition, it additionally gives helpful information to keep up ecosystem companies and defend freshwater and marine ecosystems. “This trend is encouraging for the future of health systems and sound environmental management but there is a need for expanding this positive trend further and enhancing the good practices and significant efforts to monitor and assess water quality,” in line with the United Nations Environment Programme. The World Health Organization can also be engaged on capability growth for wastewater and environmental surveillance.
