Department of Life Sciences, National Institute for Biotechnology in the Negev, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, 84105, Israel.
Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, University of Ilorin, PMB 1515, Ilorin, Nigeria; Department of Agricultural Civil Engineering, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea.
Environ Res. 2021 May;196:110929. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2021.110929. Epub 2021 Feb 25.
According to the WHO, on October 16, 2020, the spreading of the SARS-CoV-2, responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, reached 235 countries and territories, and resulting in more than 39 million confirmed cases and 1.09 million deaths globally. Monitoring of the virus outbreak is one of the main activities pursued to limiting the number of infected people and decreasing the number of deaths that have caused high pressure on the health care, social, and economic systems of different countries. Wastewater based epidemiology (WBE), already adopted for the surveillance of life style and health conditions of communities, shows interesting features for the monitoring of the COVID-19 diffusion. Together with wastewater, the analysis of airborne particles has been recently suggested as another useful tool for detecting the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in given areas. The present review reports the status of research currently performed concerning the monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 spreading by WBE and airborne particles. The former have been more investigated, whereas the latter is still at a very early stage, with a limited number of very recent studies. Nevertheless, the main results highlights in both cases necessitate more research activity for better understating and defining the biomarkers and the related sampling and analysis procedures to be used for this important aim.
根据世界卫生组织（WHO）的数据，2020 年 10 月 16 日，引发 COVID-19 大流行的 SARS-CoV-2 已蔓延至 235 个国家和地区，导致全球超过 3900 万例确诊病例和 109 万人死亡。对病毒爆发的监测是限制感染人数和降低死亡率的主要活动之一，这对不同国家的医疗保健、社会和经济系统造成了巨大压力。基于废水的流行病学（WBE）已经被用于监测社区的生活方式和健康状况，在监测 COVID-19 的传播方面显示出了有趣的特征。与废水一起，空气中颗粒的分析最近也被建议作为另一种用于检测特定区域 SARS-CoV-2 存在的有用工具。本综述报告了目前关于通过 WBE 和空气中颗粒监测 SARS-CoV-2 传播的研究现状。前者已经得到了更多的研究，而后者仍处于非常早期的阶段，仅有少数非常近期的研究。然而，在这两种情况下，主要结果都需要更多的研究活动，以更好地理解和定义用于这一重要目的的生物标志物以及相关的采样和分析程序。
