Part of UC San Diego’s Return to Learn program, wastewater screening helped prevent outbreaks by detecting 85 percent of cases early, allowing for timely testing, contact tracing and isolation.

Now they have data to back it up: Screening for SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater, the team showed they can detect even a single infected, asymptomatic person living or working in a large building. Notification to occupants of each building with positive wastewater increased COVID-19 testing rates by as much as 13-fold. Once an occupant tested positive, isolation and contact tracing helped prevent further spread of the virus.

The approach enabled early detection of 85 percent of COVID-19 cases on the campus, researchers reported in the August 10, 2021 issue of mSystems. In other words, wastewater samples tested positive before most individual case diagnoses.

«University campuses especially benefit from wastewater surveillance as a means to avert COVID-19 outbreaks, as they’re full of largely asymptomatic populations, and are potential hot spots for transmission that necessitate frequent diagnostic testing,» said first author Smruthi Karthikeyan, PhD, an environmental engineer and postdoctoral researcher at UC San Diego School of Medicine.

Karthikeyan led the study with senior author Rob Knight, PhD, professor and director of the Center for Microbiome Innovation at UC San Diego.

Wastewater screening is an integral part of UC San Diego’s Return to Learn program, an evidence-based approach that has allowed the university to offer on-campus housing and in-person classes and research opportunities throughout most of the pandemic.

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Materials provided by University of California — San Diego. Original written by Heather Buschman, Ph.D.. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.