Wastewater monitoring in tourist cities as potential sentinel sites for near real-time dynamics of imported SARS-CoV-2 variants.

ABSTRACT: Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) complements the clinical surveillance of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and its variants' distribution in populations. Many developed nations have established national and regional WBE systems; however, governance and budget constraints could be obstacles for low- and middle-income countries. An urgent need thus exists to identify hotspots to serve as sentinel sites for WBE. We hypothesized that representative wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in two international gateway cities, Bangkok and Phuket, Thailand, could be sentineled for SARS-CoV-2 and its variants to reflect the clinical distribution patterns at city level and serve as early indicators of new variants entering the country. Municipal wastewater samples (n = 132

SUBMITTER: Sangsanont J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9691270 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature