How Monash’s wastewater samplers picking up COVID-19 traces in Australia

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Victoria, (TIE Australia). Monash Expert has found out an innovative way to prevent the Covid third wave and eliminate lockdowns. Revolutionary ‘torpedo’ passive samplers, developed by Monash University, Victoria’s department of Health, Melbourne Water, Water Research Australia and other industry wastewater. Early detection of COVID-19 in wastewater may help prevent further waves and reduce the need for lockdowns.
A simple, cost-effective and portable device, shaped like a torpedo, has been successful in detecting SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater in Victoria – opening avenues for a global rollout as the virus continues to ravage major cities.
Researchers at Monash University’s Department of Civil Engineering, in partnership with a consortium of universities and industry locally and internationally, have provided the first evidence that passive samplers can be used to detect SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater at three different scales – an individual lot, suburb and city.
Dubbed the ‘Torpedo Passive Sampler’ and the ‘sewage submarine’, it was constructed using cotton buds, medical gauze swabs and lab grade electronegative membranes. They were encased in a narrow 3D printed shell.
The passive samplers were placed across eight study sites in Victoria ranging from systems that collected the wastewater of 260 residents and staff near an aged care facility, to Melbourne’s largest sewage treatment plant that pools wastewater from more than two million residents.
Seven of the eight sites were in metropolitan Melbourne, with the other in Colac. All sites were chosen due to having known cases of COVID-19 during the second wave of infections.
Analysis showed success in detecting SARS-CoV-2 using passive sampling. The research also demonstrated that when the daily average SARS-CoV-2 concentration in wastewater exceeds 1 copy per mL, at least one of the passive samplers deployed at the same site on the same day was also positive.

 

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