Chandigarh: Immediately, waste samples will be collected from the city to detect early warning signals about Covid outbreaks.
This will allow epidemiologists to track areas where Covid outbreaks may start a lot before the patient experiences symptoms.
As part of the WHO-ICMR project for two years, 10 places have been selected in India for tracking waste water.
For this, which has chosen the PGI Virology Laboratory, which will include samples from Chandigarh and Punjab.
“Funds have been given for the first year.
Our staff has been trained and the biosafety room has been established exclusively for this project,” said Prof.
Mini P Singh, who will lead the project in Chandigarh.
“We have received Rs 20 Lakh for the first year,” he said.
It has been established that the faecal material of infected patients contains the RNA virus and flushed in the toilet.
Dirt has long-term shedding and even if the patient does not show symptoms, the virus can be detected in feces.
In addition, viruses can be detected in asymptomatic patient stools long before the onset of symptoms.
It will be on the line of supervision of polio viruses, where infected individuals remove polio viruses for several weeks, whether they are symptomatic or not.
The test protocol has been standardized by the National Virology Institute, Mumbai.
Samples will be collected and sent to the Virology Laboratory in PGI by the team assigned by WHO-ICMR.
“Samples will be collected from the catchment of the water and where there is no waste line, the open channel will be selected for the collection of samples.
There is a map of this waste system with a polio team to find a catchment area.
Before eliminating the waste treatment plant, it will be collected.
This is an environmental survey, “said Prof.
Mini.
Waste surveillance can offer cost-effective and real-time analysis.
“When not many are advanced for testing, this supervision can monitor the plague or detect a new variant.