First detection of SARS-CoV-2 in untreated wastewaters in Italy
Author links open overlay panelGiuseppinaLa RosaaMarcelloIaconelliaPamelaManciniaGiusyBonanno FerraroaCarolinaVeneriaLuciaBonadonnaaLucaLucentiniaElisabettaSuffredinib
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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139652
Abstract
Several studies have demonstrated the advantages of environmental surveillance through the monitoring of sewage for the assessment of viruses circulating in a given community (wastewater-based epidemiology, WBE).
During the COVID-19 public health emergency, many reports have described the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in stools from COVID-19 patients, and a few studies reported the occurrence of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewaters worldwide. Italy is among the world's worst-affected countries in the COVID-19 pandemic, but so far there are no studies assessing the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in Italian wastewaters. To this aim, twelve influent sewage samples, collected between February and April 2020 from Wastewater Treatment Plants in Milan and Rome, were tested adapting, for concentration, the standard WHO procedure for Poliovirus surveillance. Molecular analysis was undertaken with three nested protocols, including a newly designed SARS-CoV-2 specific primer set.
