COVID Monitoing in Wastewater

The spread of the COVID-19 virus has brought about global change on an unprecedented scale as countries across the globe adjust to life under a pandemic. While promising work is currently being undertaken to develop and produce a suitable vaccine, there is still a variety of work that has to be undertaken to increase understanding of the virus and its proliferation in the interim. An interdisciplinary project between Bangor University, Cardiff University, Public Health Wales and Dwr Cymru Welsh Water has been developed to monitor COVID-19 in wastewater across Wales.

The data collected will enable the Welsh government and national agencies to make informed decisions and take decisive action, where appropriate, to protect people across Wales from exposure to the virus. In line with their research aims, Proteus multi-parameter water quality probes are being used to provide information on a range of water quality parameters, including BOD and total coliforms, to complement the virus sampling. Automatic sampling for the virus will be conducted using actively-cooled portable ISCO Avalanche Auto-Samplers from RS Hydro. The project is placing an additional emphasis on further respiratory viruses and pathogens present in the water, as well as the lineages of Sars-CoV-2 to identify if new variances are developing and entering Wales.

You can follow the project development here.