Pakistani scientists find method to prevent future outbreak of coronavirus.

MULTAN -- Utilising polio environment surveillance network, a team of Pakistani scientists from the National Institute of Health (NIH) Islamabad has detected SARs-CoV-2 (COVID-19) in wastewater, saying this method can be used as an early warning system to prevent any future outbreak, The Nation has learnt.

The researchers, led by Dr Salman Sharif, conducted the study titled, 'Detection of SARS-Coronavirus-2 in wastewater, using the existing environmental surveillance network: An epidemiological gateway to an early warning for COVID-19 in communities.'

'The result of the study, which is available online at MedRxiv, confirms that wastewater surveillance method may be helpful in monitoring viral tracking and circulation in cities with lower COVID-19 disease burden or heavily populated areas where door-to-door tracing may not be possible,' said Dr. Sharif while talking to The Nation.

The wastewater samples for the study were taken between March and April 2020 and the finding indicates that SARs-CoV-2 detection through wastewater surveillance has an epidemiologic potential and, if in place, this approach can prevent communities from facing any major viral outbreak in future.

The COVID-19 pandemic has so far killed 531806 people besides infecting 11301850 across the world. The disease affected 216 countries of the world. Pakistan has so far recorded 231813 confirmed cases and 4,762 deaths due to the virus.

Scientists believe that the life and financial losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to the world could have been prevented had there been an early warning system in place.

Scientists across the world are now working on wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) approach, a new method to detect SARS-CoV-2 in the wastewater of communities infected with the virus. If successful, this method can provide an effective and rapid way to predict the potential spread of novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19) through analysis of sewer samples carrying feces and urine of virus carriers.

In a recently published article in The Science Daily, Dr Zhugen Yang, Lecturer in Sensor Technology at Cranfield Water Science Institute, claimed that the WBE method may prove effective even when there were no signs of any outbreak. 'In...