An early warning system in the works to detect COVID-19 could one day tell public health officials if there is a viral outbreak at a specific university residence, long-term care home, or prison without the use of testing.
Since early June, researchers at the University of Windsor have been working on a pilot project to detect RNA from the virus in sewage wastewater in Windsor, Amherstburg, Lakeshore, and London.
The virus is shed in fecal matter, and early on researchers noted trends in infection rates in a community can be found in regular testing of sewage entering wastewater treatment plants. Staff at those facilities had already been gathering those samples to ensure they were in compliance with regulations.
Greenway Wastewater Treatment Centre in London. Photo from Google Maps Street View.
The executive director at the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, Mike McKay, told BlackburnNews.com the team now has enough information to create a baseline to test future samples against.
As the daily number of cases continues to rise across Ontario, the timing could not be better since the system could act as a canary in a coal mine finding trends in infection before outbreaks bloom in the community.
"This is an opportunity to test the entire community without relying on somebody to go and get a test," said McKay. "Picks up asymptomatic, symptomatic cases. It doesn't discriminate."
So far, the project is confined to just the four communities, but McKay said there is interest province-wide too.
"There's been some interest from the province in rolling out a larger-scale pilot," he said. "Details are still being worked out, but in Premier Ford's budget release last week there was a line item to support wastewater surveillance."
Last week, the federal government showed its support by awarding the project $300,000 in funding through its Canadian Foundation for Innovation. The fund was set up to equip projects related to COVID-19, and McKay said the money will buy new equipment including a device that could help researchers test locations for signs of the virus.
"We've requested funds to purchase autosamplers, and these are instruments that allow us to take a sample of wastewater over a period of time. It averages the signal out over perhaps a day," he explained. "This will allow us to get mobile -- targeting specific facilities."
He hopes to set up a testing regiment for residences at the University of Windsor.
"This could be part of the effort to get the University of Windsor back for face-to-face instruction in fall 2021," he said. "A screening lab on campus where wastewater monitoring related to some of our residence halls be one of the elements."
Once the pandemic passes, McKay believes the science will have broader applications including detecting outbreaks of other infectious diseases.
"We could pick up seasonal flu for example," he said. "Other countries have previously used wastewater to monitor for things like poliovirus."