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SINGAPORE: Two keys and the same number of team members are needed to open the lid of the big look. Sometimes you need more hands.
Dressed in their non-public protective equipment (water-resistant boots, two layers of clothing, N95 masks, masks and double gloves), the National Environmental Health Agency (NEA) environmental health team is looking for clues that can potentially involve presence. COVID-19 virus in a bedroom a few meters from where they are.
As a component of a pilot program initiated through the NEA and edited through the National Water Agency PUB and the Science and Technology Agency (HTX), this wastewater sampling is used for monitoring and controlling the transmission of COVID-19 among staff living in dormitories.
“Monitoring wastewater for COVID-19 allows us to understand the situation in the community (where it is) being sampled,” said Dr Judith Wong, a research scientist at the Environmental Health Institute, on Wednesday (Jul 22).
“We know that other inflamed people excrete the virus in the faeces and that sewage receives faeces and other respiratory discharges such as sputum and nasal aspiration.”
“Therefore, wastewater monitoring for the virus allows a non-invasive technique for the COVID-19 scenario and this is independent of clinical testing regimens as well as a population’s fitness study habit.”
When lifting the cap from the inspection hydrant, the equipment inserts a rubber sampling tube that will help collect between two hundred and 800 ml of wastewater. These sewage is pumped into an automatic sampler.
The automatic modeler is programmed to collect patterns over time, and once the patterns have been assembled, the team will move them to pattern bottles that will be transported to the lab for analysis.
The entire process can take between 30 minutes to up to three hours depending on factors such as whether the site designated for the extraction of the sample is suitable.
Samples will then be processed in the lab and tested for SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19.
Tewater sampling and research method for COVID-19 evolved through the Institute of Environmental Health, with clinical input from the Singapore Center for Environmental Life Sciences at Nanyang University of Technology, the Research and Technology Alliance of the Singapore-Massachusetts Institute and the National University of Singapore.
“This method has been used for the national COVID-19 infection control and prevention effort,” Dr. Wong said.
“It is used to complement the existing collection strategy in the bedrooms. For example, when we control viral signals in array bedrooms … we can perceive whether or not infection control measures have been implemented.”
In a bedroom where transmission of the virus is known, if no viral signs are detected in the sewage, this provides an “additional guarantee” that the bedroom is infection-free, Dr Wong added.
“However, if virus signals are detected in this dormitory, it will then prompt appropriate follow-up measures such as swab testing of the population to allow us to identify the infected migrant worker,” said Dr Wong.
“Subsequently, this will provide adequate medical care and also isolate the case from long-term transmission.”
MOTIVATED BY POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS
As a group, migrant workers living in dormitories in Singapore have been the hardest-hit by COVID-19, making up the vast majority of the 48,744 confirmed cases as of Jul 22.
The pilot programme began in April and has since been expanded to more than 30 dormitories so far. About 20 personnel are deployed in various roles ranging from collecting samples to working in the laboratories, said Dr Wong.
A team of two or three more people deploys in six to eight sites according to the day.
The appearance that is decided through the team will have to be located away from the public, not along a main road or pedestrian walkway, and should involve the wastewater from the network that scientists plan to analyze.
“It’s quite exhausting, it’s quite hot. We go through the heat, the weather, even the fatigue of opening the inspection hydrants, etc.,” Dr. Wong said.
“But our team is motivated by the positive contributions it can make to the community.”
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