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. 2022 Jun:36:100482.
doi: 10.1016/j.sbsr.2022.100482. Epub 2022 Mar 2.

A review on the contamination of SARS-CoV-2 in water bodies: Transmission route, virus recovery and recent biosensor detection techniques

Siti Adibah Zamhuri  1 , Chin Fhong Soon  1   2 , Anis Nurashikin Nordin  3 , Rosminazuin Ab Rahim  3 , Naznin Sultana  4 , Muhammad Arif Khan  1 , Gim Pao Lim  1 , Kian Sek Tee  2
Affiliations

A review on the contamination of SARS-CoV-2 in water bodies: Transmission route, virus recovery and recent biosensor detection techniques

Siti Adibah Zamhuri et al. Sens Biosensing Res. 2022 Jun.

Abstract

The discovery of SARS-CoV-2 virus in the water bodies has been reported, and the risk of virus transmission to human via the water route due to poor wastewater management cannot be disregarded. The main source of the virus in water bodies is the sewage network systems which connects to the surface water. Wastewater-based epidemiology has been applied as an early surveillance tool to sense SARS-CoV-2 virus in the sewage network. This review discussed possible transmission routes of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the challenges of the existing method in detecting the virus in wastewater. One significant challenge for the detection of the virus is that the high virus loading is diluted by the sheer volume of the wastewater. Hence, virus preconcentration from water samples prior to the application of virus assay is essential to accurately detect traceable virus loading. The preparation time, materials and conditions, virus type, recovery percentage, and various virus recovery techniques are comprehensively discussed in this review. The practicability of molecular methods such as Polymer-Chain-Reaction (PCR) for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater will be revealed. The conventional virus detection techniques have several shortcomings and the potential of biosensors as an alternative is also considered. Biosensing techniques have also been proposed as an alternative to PCR and have reported detection limits of 10 pg/μl. This review serves to guide the reader on the future designs and development of highly sensitive, robust and, cost effective SARS-CoV-2 lab-on-a-chip biosensors for use in complex wastewater.

Keywords: Biosensor; Coronavirus; Polymer-chain-reaction; SARS-CoV 2; Wastewater; Wastewater based epidemiology.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Number of research articles on the detection of SARS-CoV-2 in the wastewater.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The routes of transmission for coronavirus to the water bodies.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
The workflow in detecting virus loaded in complex wastewater in the laboratory and using in-situ test instrument.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Existing biosensors (electrochemical [134], optical [135], and piezoelectric [136]) suitable for in-situ COVID-19 monitoring through WBE.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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