{"id":139659,"date":"2021-04-19T10:46:43","date_gmt":"2021-04-19T20:46:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=139659"},"modified":"2021-04-19T14:34:23","modified_gmt":"2021-04-20T00:34:23","slug":"wastewater-reflects-levels-of-infection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2021\/04\/19\/wastewater-reflects-levels-of-infection\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 in Honolulu wastewater reflects levels of infection"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/manoa-engineering-wastewater-sampling.jpg\" alt=\"three people doing wastewater sampling research\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-116933\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/manoa-engineering-wastewater-sampling.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/manoa-engineering-wastewater-sampling-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/manoa-engineering-wastewater-sampling-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Wastewater is a reliable indicator of the prevalence of COVID-19 in a community, according to new research by University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Hawai&#699;i<\/span> at M\u0101noa\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eng.hawaii.edu\/\">College of Engineering<\/a>. Led by Professor <strong>Tao Yan<\/strong>, the team from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cee.hawaii.edu\/\">Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering<\/a> discovered that wastewater contains the <abbr>SARS-CoV-2<\/abbr> viral <abbr title=\"Ribonucleic Acid\">RNA<\/abbr> and its concentration tracks community COVID-19 disease burden.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers gathered and analyzed wastewater samples from the Sand Island (largest) and Honouliuli (2nd largest) Wastewater Treatment Plants in the City and County of Honolulu over a five-week period from August 27 to October 4, 2020, when Honolulu was placed under a lockdown in response to a growing number COVID-19 cases. The team tested the samples for a concentration of <abbr>SARS-CoV-2<\/abbr> viral <abbr>RNA<\/abbr> in a lab at <abbr title=\"东精影业\">东精影业<\/abbr> M\u0101noa.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Related <em><abbr>东精影业<\/abbr> News<\/em> story: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2020\/04\/27\/covid19-wastewater-surveillance\/\"><abbr>东精影业<\/abbr> M\u0101noa COVID-19 wastewater surveillance project receives <abbr title=\"National Science Foundation\">NSF<\/abbr> funding<\/a>, April 27, 2020<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>At the beginning of the testing period, Honolulu reached its highest peak of more than 300 COVID-19 cases on a single day. After tougher COVID-19 restrictions were implemented, cases dropped to a seven-day average of 75 cases at the beginning of October 2020, when the sampling process concluded. Yan said the reduced concentration of the virus in the wastewater samples directly correlated with the drop in COVID-19 cases.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Typically we think wastewater is loaded with enteric pathogens (microbes such as viruses, bacteria and parasites that cause intestinal illness). This study shows that wastewater surveillance can also be used to track community disease burdens of pathogens causing respiratory infections,&rdquo; Yan said. &ldquo;This is extremely important as we closely monitor emerging variants of COVID-19 in the community and other potential pandemic strains in the future.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The findings were recently <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.watres.2021.117093\">published in <em>Water Research<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This work is an example of <abbr>东精影业<\/abbr> M\u0101noa\u2019s goal of <a href=\"https:\/\/manoa.hawaii.edu\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/manoa-2025-strategic-plan.pdf#page=25\">Excellence in Research: Advancing the Research and Creative Work Enterprise<\/a> (<span class=\"small-text\"><abbr title=\"Portable Document Format\">PDF<\/abbr><\/span>), one of four goals identified in the <a href=\"https:\/\/manoa.hawaii.edu\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/manoa-2025-strategic-plan.pdf\">2015&#8211;25 Strategic Plan<\/a> (<span class=\"small-text\"><abbr title=\"Portable Document Format\">PDF<\/abbr><\/span>), updated in December 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wastewater samples were taken from two of the largest wastewater treatment plants in the City and County of Honolulu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[179,1411,1417,182,1467,1363,158,9],"class_list":["post-139659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-college-of-engineering","tag-covid-19","tag-covid-19-research","tag-engineering","tag-manoa-excellence-in-research","tag-manoa-research","tag-publication","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139659"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139668,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139659\/revisions\/139668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}