Wastewater surveillance can identify existing, known variants of interest or variants of concern.
Vision
To provide an early warning to public health agencies before they might be notified of positive cases.
Description
This is the first study in India to demonstrate the utility of sequencing in wastewater-based epidemiology to identify mutations associated with SARS-CoV-2 virus fragments from wastewater as an early warning indicator system.
The emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks on a community level can be monitored through wastewater surveillance. Combined with clinical testing, sentinel surveillance and epidemiological data, wastewater surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 can help track and identify the virus at an early stage and also estimate its geographical spread and intensity of transmission. Environmental Surveillance focuses on the collection and analysis of sewage and wastewater samples from various parts of the city to complement human surveillance and enable early detection of disease, considering that a large proportion of infected people are asymptomatic.
Objectives
- Collection of wastewater samples from STPs in Pune
- Quantitative Real-Time PCR for SARS-CoV-2 detection and viral load estimation
- Identifying variants and mutations of SARS-CoV-2 by next gen sequencing analysis
Partners
- CCMB
- NCBS
- NCL, Pune
- Symbiosis School of Biological Sciences
- Ecosan Services Foundation
- Fluid Robotics Pvt. Ltd.
- IISER, Pune
For more information and interest to support, please write to [email protected].