SA Water testing of wastewater found to detect Covid-19 virus in same way it picks up on drug use in community
SA Water environmental microbiology scientist Melody Lau conducts a test at the Adelaide-based laboratory.
Image courtesy SA Water
Wastewater testing has become a way of keeping a disease watch on South Australia. Wastewater surveillance by SA Water’s research team in Adelaide city was particularly targeted at Covid-19 during the 2020 pandemic threat.
Among multiple screening sites across South Australia, Mount Gambier on the Limestone Coast in the state’s southeast became a particular focus, with concerns that the virus could cross from the western district of badly-affected Victoria. Any trace of the virus in the sewage stream was hoped to give an early warning of whether Covid-19 was present in the South Australian community and increasing. It could potentially pick up the presence of the virus before standard testing.
The state government’s SA Health would be alerted immediately if a positive result emerged.
Sewage testing for COVID-19 was a new technique that was only discovered earlier in 2020. It was found that around 50% of people with the disease excrete the virus in their faecal material. SA water’s wastewater screening technique was also used for drug surveillance and other organisms that could cause disease.
The results of wastewater testing generally matched with other methods of estimating drug use, such as surveys and seizures by authorities. It highlighted and identified new trends and specific profiles of drug use much early than other indicators. Wastewater samples showed that Adelaide had recorded the highest methamphetamine use of all the cities in the world.
