A pilot project is underway by Public Health Researchers to check Karachi’s sewage water for Covid-19 and its concentration.
According to a statement issued by Aga Khan University (AKU), national and international health organizations will take part in this project which include the World Health Organization’s Pakistan office, the National Institute of Health (NIH) and infection disease epidemiologist of AKU.
Samples of the sewerage water will be taken to find the presence of coronavirus and its concentration, many of the Western countries including US, Australia, Canada and European countries have set this Sewerage surveillance systems.
These systems will keep the health officials and public administrations alert, to take immediate actions for coronavirus before many days of the increase in cases in an area.
How does sewage water help in detecting virus?
Health officials have confirmed that a person develops symptoms before, which will be easily detected in the sewage water of an area.
This means that wastewater sampling has the potential to act like a sensitive, early warning system for trends in new cases and a potential way to prevent new cases. That’s because nasal swab tests, which detect the presence of the virus in the nose, are typically only taken after symptoms appear, between seven and ten days after infection, which means that people could have unknowingly been spreading the disease for days before their positive test.
Researchers will observe the number of SARS CoV-2 particles per milliliter of filtered sewage to estimate the number of cases in the area.
