Wastewater-based epidemiology: the crucial role of viral shedding dynamics in small communities

Frontiers in Public Health

Public Health

Patrick Dolcé¹  Nanouk Abonnenc²  Patrik Quessy²  Jean-François Lemay²  Dominic Frigon³  François Guillemette⁴  Marc-Denis Rioux⁵  Karine Lemarchand⁶  Kim Doiron⁷  Peter A. Vanrolleghem⁸  Thomas Maere⁸ 

[1]Centre Intégré de Santé et de services sociaux du Bas-Saint-Laurent, Quebec, QC, Canada

[2]Centre National en Électrochimie et Technologies Environnementales, Cegep of Shawinigan, Quebec, QC, Canada

[3]Department of Civil Engineering, McGill University, Quebec, QC, Canada

[4]Department of Environmental Science, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivière, Quebec, QC, Canada

[5]Department of Mathematics and Engineering, Université du Québec à Rimouski, Quebec, QC, Canada

[6]Institut des Sciences de la Mer, Université du Québec à Rimouski, Quebec, QC, Canada

[7]Northern Institute for Research in Environment and Occupational Health and Safety, Quebec, QC, Canada

[8]modelEAU, Département de génie civil et de génie des eaux, Université Laval, Quebec, QC, Canada

关键词: wastewater-based epidemiology;    viral shedding dynamics;    small communities;    wastewater surveillance;    pathogens;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpubh.2023.1141837

 received in 2023-01-10, accepted in 2023-06-30,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundWastewater surveillance (WWS) of pathogens is a rapidly evolving field owing to the 2019 coronavirus disease pandemic, which brought about a paradigm shift in public health authorities for the management of pathogen outbreaks. However, the interpretation of WWS in terms of clinical cases remains a challenge, particularly in small communities where large variations in pathogen concentrations are routinely observed without a clear relation to clinical incident cases.MethodsResults are presented for WWS from six municipalities in the eastern part of Canada during the spring of 2021. We developed a numerical model based on viral kinetics reduction functions to consider both prevalent and incident cases to interpret the WWS data in light of the reported clinical cases in the six surveyed communities.ResultsThe use of the proposed numerical model with a viral kinetics reduction function drastically increased the interpretability of the WWS data in terms of the clinical cases reported for the surveyed community. In line with our working hypothesis, the effects of viral kinetics reduction modeling were more important in small communities than in larger communities. In all but one of the community cases (where it had no effect), the use of the proposed numerical model led to a change from a +1.5% (for the larger urban center, Quebec City) to a +48.8% increase in the case of a smaller community (Drummondville).ConclusionConsideration of prevalent and incident cases through the proposed numerical model increases the correlation between clinical cases and WWS data. This is particularly the case in small communities. Because the proposed model is based on a biological mechanism, we believe it is an inherent part of any wastewater system and, hence, that it should be used in any WWS analysis where the aim is to relate WWS measurement to clinical cases.

【 授权许可】

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Copyright © 2023 Rioux, Guillemette, Lemarchand, Doiron, Lemay, Maere, Dolcé, Quessy, Abonnenc, Vanrolleghem and Frigon.