Analysing wastewater is a cheaper, faster and more accurate way for public health officials and researchers to detect rising cases.
Bits and pieces of Covid-19 are flushed down toilets and washed down sinks by infected individuals; more copies of the virus found in sewage means more people are sick. But until now, most wastewater analysis methods have lumped all the different variants together as one.
Scientists at Scripps Research and University of California, San Diego (UCSD) have developed a method that allows them to accurately determine the genetic mixture of Covid-19 variants present within a population from just two teaspoons of raw sewage.
This allows them to identify new variants of concern up to 14 days before traditional clinical testing. In San Diego wastewater, the group detected the Omicron variant 11 days before it was first reported clinically.
Their algorithm, named 'Freyja', has quickly been adapted by many public health labs, and...