Table 3.
Presence of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater
| Study area | Water matrix | Sample volume | Time span | Virus concentration and detection method | Inferences | References |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Massachusetts, USA | Sewage | 18th March to 25th March 2020 | Initial testing was done with PCR using primers specific for the SARS-CoV-2 S gene followed by US CDC primer/probe sets targeting the N1, N2, and N3 loci of the SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid gene | SARS-CoV-2 was detected in all the 10 samples with approximately 100 genomic copies/ml | Wu et al. 2020a* | |
| Southeast Queensland, Australia | Untreated wastewater (sewage) | 100–200 ml | 24th February 2020 to 1st May 2020 | Viruses was concentrated via two methods: (i) direct RNA extraction from electronegative membranes and (ii) ultrafiltration followed by detection with RT-qPCR with two different primer-probe sets for nucleocapsid protein gene | Out of nine samples, two were tested positive; one positivity for each concentration method (not the same sample) but with only one set of primers and at very low titres: 1.2 and 1.9 genomic copies/100 ml | Ahmed et al. 2020 |
| Region of Murcia (Spain) | Wastewater | 200 ml | 12 March to 14 April 2020 | Aluminium hydroxide adsorption-precipitation concentration method was used and RT-qPCR diagnostic panel validated by US CDC was used for detection | SARS-CoV-2 RNA was detected in two out of eighteen secondary water samples and all twelve tertiary water samples were tested as negative | Randazzo et al. 2020 |
| Paris, France | Raw and treated wastewater | 5th March to 23rd April 2020 | Viral concentrate was lysed and extracted using PowerFecal Pro kit (QIAGEN) on QIAsymphony automated extractor; Confirmed by RT-qPCR on viral RdRp gene | All the samples tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 genomes | Wurtzer et al. 2020* | |
| Milan and Rome, Italy | Influent sewage | 250 ml | February and April 2020 | Concentration was done using two-phase (PEG-dextran method) separation; developed novel nested PCR assay specific for SARS-CoV-2 analysis | 50% samples were tested positive and one of them was present in the sample that was collected just a few days after the first case of SARS-CoV-2 in Italy. | La Rosa et al. 2020 |
| Bozeman, Montana, USA | Raw sewage | 500 ml | 23rd March to 27th March, 2020; 30th March to 3rd April 2020 | The samples were concentrated with Corning Spin-X UF concentrators & RNeasy Mini Kit extracted RNA. RT-qPCR was done using N1 and N2 primer pairs and probes from 2019-nCoV CDC EUA Kit | All the seven samples tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. Composite sampling is suggested as the most reliable method for calculating viral conc. In water over time. | Nemudryi et al. (2020)* |
| Netherlands | 100–200 ml | 5th February to 16th March 2020 | Samples were filtered and concentrated by centrifugation. Four primer sets were selected, i.e. N1–N3 for nucleocapsid protein gene and envelope protein (E) gene against two separate SARS-CoV-2 genes | 77.8% samples foundpositive after reporting of the first case of COVID 19 in Netherlands. | Medema et al. (2020)* | |
| Yamanshi Prefecture, Japan | Wastewater and river water | 200–5,000 ml | 17th March to 7th May 2020 | Concentration and extraction was done using electronegative membrane-vortex (EMV) method and adsorption-direc tRNA extraction method | SARS-CoV-2 detected in 20% of the sec. wastewater with a conc. of 2.4 × 103 copies/L. All the sample of influent and river were tested negative. EMV method was found superior | Haramoto et al. 2020* |
*The data has been retrieved from medRxiv as preliminary reports, which had not yet been peer-reviewed