Department of Chemical, Environmental, and Materials Engineering, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL 33146, USA.
Department of Medicine, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, 33136, FL, USA.
Sci Total Environ. 2024 Mar 25;918:170452. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.170452. Epub 2024 Jan 29.
Clinical testing has been a vital part of the response to and suppression of the COVID-19 pandemic; however, testing imposes significant burdens on a population. College students had to contend with clinical testing while simultaneously dealing with health risks and the academic pressures brought on by quarantines, changes to virtual platforms, and other disruptions to daily life. The objective of this study was to analyze whether wastewater surveillance can be used to decrease the intensity of clinical testing while maintaining reliable measurements of diseases incidence on campus. Twelve months of human health and wastewater surveillance data for eight residential buildings on a university campus were analyzed to establish how SARS-CoV-2 levels in the wastewater can be used to minimize clinical testing burden on students. Wastewater SARS-CoV-2 levels were used to create multiple scenarios, each with differing levels of testing intensity, which were compared to the actual testing volumes implemented by the university. We found that scenarios in which testing intensity fluctuations matched rise and falls in SARS-CoV-2 wastewater levels had stronger correlations between SARS-CoV-2 levels and recorded clinical positives. In addition to stronger correlations, most scenarios resulted in overall fewer weekly clinical tests performed. We suggest the use of wastewater surveillance to guide COVID-19 testing as it can significantly increase the efficacy of COVID-19 surveillance while reducing the burden placed on college students during a pandemic. Future efforts should be made to integrate wastewater surveillance into clinical testing strategies implemented on college campuses.
临床检测一直是应对和抑制 COVID-19 大流行的重要组成部分；然而，检测给人群带来了巨大的负担。大学生在应对健康风险的同时，还必须应对隔离、虚拟平台改变以及日常生活其他方面的干扰所带来的学术压力，他们还必须进行临床检测。本研究的目的是分析污水监测是否可以在减少临床检测强度的同时，保持对校园疾病发病率的可靠测量。分析了大学校园八栋住宅楼 12 个月的人类健康和污水监测数据，以确定如何利用污水中的 SARS-CoV-2 水平来最大程度地减少学生的临床检测负担。利用污水中的 SARS-CoV-2 水平创建了多个场景，每个场景的检测强度不同，并将这些场景与大学实际实施的检测量进行了比较。我们发现，检测强度波动与 SARS-CoV-2 污水水平的上升和下降相匹配的场景与 SARS-CoV-2 水平和记录的临床阳性之间的相关性更强。除了相关性更强之外，大多数情况下每周进行的临床检测次数总体上更少。我们建议利用污水监测来指导 COVID-19 检测，因为它可以在大流行期间显著提高 COVID-19 监测的效果，同时减轻大学生的负担。未来应努力将污水监测纳入大学校园实施的临床检测策略中。
