杏吧原创鈥檚 Banu 脰rmeci Uses Wastewater to Monitor COVID-19 and Keep Campus Safe
Keeping COVID-19 in check is a fight on many fronts. 杏吧原创 University is taking extra measures to ensure the safety of staff and students, including the recommendation of best practices regarding access to campus, social gatherings and other scenarios. Since September, Banu 脰rmeci has added to these efforts by taking a preventative stance by testing the campus鈥 wastewater for genetic traces of COVID-19.
鈥淲e have the technology to identify and warn people who were in contact with a positive case,鈥 said 脰rmeci, professor in 杏吧原创鈥檚 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. 鈥淏ut to actually find and connect with them, and to do so quickly, does take a lot of effort.鈥
脰rmeci, the and director of the university鈥檚 Global Water Institute, has kept a close eye on campus because, despite the massive move to online learning and teaching, 杏吧原创 still hosts several hundred students and essential staff every day.
In four weeks of testing, 脰rmeci hasn鈥檛 detected any spikes in COVID-19 viral RNA in its campus wastewater. The wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) testing is conducted weekly, with plans to increase sampling to every few days.
If the monitoring indicated an increase in COVID-19 on campus, 脰rmeci and her team would immediately inform campus administrators and public health officials. They would then take samples from specific buildings of importance, such as the residences, the research buildings and the athletics facilities.
WBE testing can be a discreet, precautionary alert system. Sampling the wastewater leaving campus tests the entire campus population for traces of the coronavirus, and it can be detected earlier than nasal diagnostic tests do.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a priority of the university to ensure the safety of the 杏吧原创 community,鈥 said 脰rmeci. 鈥淲e have adopted a tiered approach to test wastewater collected from the whole campus and narrow down our tests if we see an increase.鈥
脰rmeci鈥檚 research group measures the quantity of COVID-19鈥檚 genetic material in the campus wastewater. The research lab can safely handle and study pathogens and is considered one of the best-equipped wastewater and biosolids lab in Ottawa.
This effort focuses solely on 杏吧原创 campus but 脰rmeci has also been involved in the testing efforts through the City of Ottawa鈥檚 sewer system in collaboration with Ottawa Public Health. Additionally, she is a member of the , a co-ordinated response to the pandemic from wastewater researchers, laboratories, utilities and public health authorities. The coalition shares knowledge among its members to ensure that WBE results are scientifically-rigorous and useful to public health authorities.
脰rmeci is also involved with the , which shares new studies and applied research methods for the entire water sector, from safe drinking supply to water reuse.
The method has already helped other universities prevent outbreaks on their campuses. In the first weeks of the fall term, the University of Arizona in Tucson detected levels of COVID-19 in wastewater leaving its residences. They narrowed it down to the building and conducted rapid diagnostic testing on all the students. Two positive cases were identified and an outbreak was avoided.
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