Virginia Tech scientists explore wastewater as a way to detect COVID-19 outbreaks

By HENRI GENDREAU The Roanoke Times 21 hrs ago 0

When COVID-19 forced Virginia Tech to evacuate in the spring, university researchers began looking at a novel way to detect potential coronavirus outbreaks on campus.

Peter Vikesland, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, for several years has been studying how sewage treatment plants enable or inhibit antibiotic-resistant bacteria. ... “The idea was to look at sewage for antibiotic resistance, and it kind of morphed over the last few months to COVID-19 and the detection of this virus,” he said.

Over the summer, he and a team began collecting samples of wastewater to analyze. Particles from sewage water stick to a filter paper, and Vikesland sends the paper to be checked for the virus by a lab run by Carla Finkielstein, an associate professor with the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute in Roanoke. ... “You can detect people who are asymptomatic in advance,” Finkielstein said. “You do have a load of virus in the body that you kind of secrete. ... What you’re doing is detecting that viral load before the actual individuals get sick with anything or manifest any kind of symptoms.”

Since classes began Aug. 24, the university has reported 711 positive cases of COVID-19 among students and employees, Virginia Tech’s dashboard reported Monday. ... While Tech mandated that roughly 8,600 on-campus students get tested for COVID-19 upon their arrival, wastewater testing offers another method to zero in on students who might be infected before they even know it.

{snip}