Several forms of SARS-CoV-2 RNA can be detected in wastewaters : implication for wastewater-based epidemiology and risk assessment.

The ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been a public health emergency of international concern. Although SARS-CoV-2 is considered to be mainly transmitted by inhalation of contaminated droplets and aerosols, SARS-CoV-2 is also detected in human feces and in raw wastewaters suggesting that other routes of infection may exist. Monitoring SARS-CoV-2 genomes in wastewaters has been proposed as a complementary approach for tracing the dynamics of virus transmission within human population connected to wastewater network. The understanding on SARS-CoV-2 transmission through wastewater surveillance, the development of epidemic modeling and the evaluation of SARS-CoV-2 transmission from contaminated wastewater are largely limited by our knowledge on viral RNA genome persistence and virus infectivity preservation in such an environment. Using an integrity based RT-qPCR assay this study led to the discovery that SARS-CoV-2 RNA can persist under several forms in wastewaters, which provides important information on the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in raw wastewaters and associated risk assessment. Graphical Abstract O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=129 SRC="FIGDIR/small/20248508v1_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (24K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@d8182eorg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@11ba6b4org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@5da120org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@fd4f8d_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG