Wastewater surveillance COVID-19

The challenge

Since December 2019, the severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has infected more than two million people globally and has claimed many lives. The need to track the spread of the virus was clear to act swiftly and limit further spreading. 

The solution

Together with KWR and Waterlab we developed and implemented a tool to monitor the early circulation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the population, by analysing critical locations in the urban water cycle, as a proxy for the prevalence of the COVID-19 illness. Wastewater surveillance can be used to monitor and forecast the circulation of viruses in society. By integrating our wastewater understanding and digital expertise, we created a data visualisation tool to become more responsive to the changes of the virus.

The result

The stakeholder engagement with the national public health authorities in the Netherlands and South Africa brought great insights into further enhancing the visualisation tool. For future-proof pandemic preparedness the need for more standardised data to maximise the effectiveness of available predictive tooling became apparent. Such a predictive digital tool is instrumental in supporting policymakers make better informed decisions for the benefit of all concerned.

With our COVID-19 predictive digital tool, the project team created the foundation for a standard operating protocol (SOP) for data collection, which is imperative for machine-learning. Discussions with the national public health authorities and relevant organisations ensured consistent enhancement of the visualisation tool. 

Quick and “easy to apply” methods allowed for data comparison across the geographical locations. Our work done within the non-sewered regions of South Africa has also brought invaluable insights into warning and detection of sub-clinical infections and into improved sampling standardisation for the majority of the world’s population living in non-sewered areas.