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. 2024 Feb 20:912:168782.
doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.168782. Epub 2023 Nov 23.

Simple SARS-CoV-2 concentration methods for wastewater surveillance in low resource settings

Mohammad Dehghan Banadaki  1 , Soroosh Torabi  1 , Alexus Rockward  2 , William D Strike  2 , Ann Noble  1 , James W Keck  3 , Scott M Berry  4
Affiliations

Simple SARS-CoV-2 concentration methods for wastewater surveillance in low resource settings

Mohammad Dehghan Banadaki et al. Sci Total Environ. .

Abstract

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) measures pathogens in wastewater to monitor infectious disease prevalence in communities. Due to the high dilution of pathogens in sewage, a concentration method is often required to achieve reliable biomarker signals. However, most of the current concentration methods rely on expensive equipment and labor-intensive processes, which limits the application of WBE in low-resource settings. Here, we compared the performance of four inexpensive and simple concentration methods to detect SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater samples: Solid Fraction, Porcine Gastric Mucin-conjugated Magnetic Beads, Calcium Flocculation-Citrate Dissolution (CFCD), and Nanotrap® Magnetic Beads (NMBs). The NMBs and CFCD methods yielded the highest concentration performance for SARS-CoV-2 (∼16-fold concentration and ∼ 41 % recovery) and require <45 min processing time. CFCD has a relatively low consumable cost (<$2 per four sample replicates). All methods can be performed with basic laboratory equipment and minimal electricity usage which enables further application of WBE in remote areas and low resource settings.

Keywords: Infectious diseases; Low-resource setting; SARS-CoV-2; Viral concentration; Wastewater-based epidemiology.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest Scott Berry has an ownership interest in Salus Discovery, LLC, which has licensed the ESP technology described in the text. Dr. Berry has also been granted patents related to the ESP process.

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