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Published Erratum
. 2024 Nov;22(11):2218-2232.
doi: 10.2166/wh.2024.301. Epub 2024 Oct 23.

Sewer system sampling for wastewater-based disease surveillance: Is the work worth it?

Urda Düker  1 , Regina Nogueira  1 , Estefania Carpio-Vallejo  2 , Ingeborg Joost  3 , Katharina Hüppe  4 , Roland Suchenwirth  5 , Yvonne Saathoff  5 , Markus Wallner  6
Affiliations
Published Erratum

Sewer system sampling for wastewater-based disease surveillance: Is the work worth it?

Urda Düker et al. J Water Health. 2024 Nov.

Abstract

Wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) influent sampling is commonly used in wastewater-based disease surveillance to assess the circulation of pathogens in the population aggregated in a catchment area. However, the signal can be lost within the sewer network due to adsorption, degradation, and dilution processes. The present work aimed to investigate the dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 concentration in three sub-catchments of the sewer system in the city of Hildesheim, Germany, characterised by different levels of urbanisation and presence/absence of industry, and to evaluate the benefit of sub-catchment sampling compared to WWTP influent sampling. Our study shows that sampling and analysis of virus concentrations in sub-catchments with particular settlement structures allows the identification of high concentrations of the virus at a local level in the wastewater, which are lower in samples collected at the inlet of the treatment plant covering the whole catchment. Higher virus concentrations per inhabitant were found in the sub-catchments in comparison to the inlet of the WWTP. Additionally, sewer sampling provides spatially resolved concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 in the catchment area, which is important for detecting local high incidences of COVID-19.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; digital droplet PCR; sewer system sampling; wastewater-based disease surveillance.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare there is no conflict.

Erratum for

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