2023, Volume 26, Issue 7
Engineering >> 2023, Volume 26, Issue 7 doi: 10.1016/j.eng.2022.03.012
Occurrence and Decay of SARS-CoV-2 in Community Sewage Drainage Systems
a State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
b Hubei Provincial Academy of Eco-Environmental Sciences, Wuhan 430072, China
c Key Laboratory of Drinking Water Science and Technology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China
# These authors contributed equally to this work.
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Abstract
The rapid spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in over 200 countries poses a substantial threat to human health. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes COVID-19, can be discharged with feces into the drainage system. However, a comprehensive understanding of the occurrence, presence, and potential transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in sewers, especially in community sewers, is still lacking. This study investigated the virus occurrence by viral nucleic acid testing in vent stacks, septic tanks, and the main sewer outlets of community where confirmed patients had lived during the outbreak of the epidemic in Wuhan, China. The results indicated that the risk of long-term emission of SARS-CoV-2 to the environment via vent stacks of buildings was low after confirmed patients were hospitalized. SARS-CoV-2 were mainly detected in the liquid phase, as opposed to being detected in aerosols, and its RNA in the sewage of septic tanks could be detected for only four days after confirmed patients were hospitalized. The surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in sewage could be a sensitive indicator for the possible presence of asymptomatic patients in the community, though the viral concentration could be diluted more than 10 times, depending on the sampling site, as indicated by the Escherichia coli (E. coli) test. The comprehensive investigation of the community sewage drainage system is helpful to understand the occurrence characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 in sewage after excretion with feces and the feasibility of sewage surveillance for COVID-19 pandemic monitoring.
Keywords
SARS-CoV-2 ; Transmission risk ; Drainage system ; Sewage ; Community
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