Lecturer Akihiko Hata of Toyama Prefectural University, in collaboration with the research group of Associate Professor Ryo Honda of Kanazawa University, conducted a research study targeting sewage treatment plants in Toyama and Ishikawa prefectures, and conducted a new corona from the inflow sewage of the sewage treatment plant. Succeeded in detecting the gene of the virus.This is the first case in Japan of a survey of sewage treatment plants in Japan.
The presence of the new coronavirus in sewage has been reported in many countries.From this, it is expected that the survey of sewage will enable early detection of the epidemic situation of the new coronavirus.
This time, from March 2020, 3, inflow sewage samples will be collected at four sewage treatment plants in Ishikawa and Toyama prefectures about once a week.The report targeted a total of 5 samples collected by April 4.The number of confirmed outbreaks of new coronavirus infections reported at the start of the survey was 1 in Toyama prefecture and 4 in Ishikawa prefecture, but by the end of April it was about 24 per 27. Increased to.The sample was concentrated about 0 times by a method using polyethylene glycol, and after the gene extraction operation, it was used for detection of the new coronavirus by the PCR method (multiple methods were applied).
As a result, 27 out of 7 samples were positive.All samples have obtained positive results by multiple PCR methods.In both prefectures, there was a tendency for the positive rate to increase after the time when the number of confirmed outbreaks of infectious diseases per 10 people exceeded 10.On the other hand, sporadic positive results were obtained even at the time of 10 case or less per 1 people.
The reported surveys at the four treatment plants have continued since April 4, and a new survey at one treatment plant in Toyama Prefecture has started in May.In the future, he plans to add these new data, submit articles to peer-reviewed English journals, and publish the data.
Paper information:[MedRxiv] Identification of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater in Japan by multiple molecular assays-implication for wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE)