Wastewater surveillance in smaller college communities may aid future public health initiatives

Abstract

To date, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in over 570 million cases and over 6 million deaths worldwide. Predominant clinical testing methods, though invaluable, may create an inaccurate depiction of COVID-19 prevalence due to inadequate access, testing, or most recently under-reporting because of at-home testing. These concerns have created a need for unbiased, community-level surveillance. Wastewater-based epidemiology has been used for previous public health threats, and more recently has been established as a complementary method of SARS-CoV-2 surveillance. Here we describe the application of wastewater surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 in two university campus communities located in rural Lincoln Parish, Louisiana. This cost-effective approach is especially well suited to rural areas where limited access to testing may worsen the spread of COVID-19 and quickly exhaust the capacity of local healthcare systems. Our work demonstrates that local universities can leverage scientific resources to advance public health equity in rural areas and enhance their community involvement.

Fig 1

Standard curves obtained from IDT 2019-nCoV_N positive control plasmid (left) and reverse-transcribed ATCC VR3276SD synthetic RNA (right).

Fig 2. Pepper mild mottle virus (PMMoV) in wastewater.

PMMoV concentrations expressed as genome copies or GC/L in the wastewater of Ruston (A), Grambling (B), and Grambling State University (C). The timeline is annotated with key events and dates including dates when no wastewater samples were collected or PMMoV amplification failed. For full table of reporting in Ruston see S1 Table.

Fig 3. SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater.

N1 and N2 concentrations expressed as genome copies or GC/L in the wastewater of Ruston (A), Grambling (B), and Grambling State University (C).

Fig 4. PMMoV-normalized SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater and weekly caseloads.

N1 and N2 concentrations in the wastewater of Ruston (A), Grambling (B), and Grambling State University (C) were divided by PMMoV concentrations to obtain a unitless ratio that normalizes for fecal load. All ratios are relative to the lowest ratio set arbitrarily as 10⁰ and plotted on the left Y axis. Total weekly caseloads in zip codes 71270 and 71273 (Ruston) and zip code 71245 (Grambling/Grambling State University) are plotted on the right Y axis.