scholarly journals FIRST DETECTION OF SARS-COV-2 IN UNTREATED WASTEWATERS IN ITALY

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuseppina La Rosa ◽  
Marcello Iaconelli ◽  
Pamela Mancini ◽  
Giusy Bonanno Ferraro ◽  
Carolina Veneri ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Wastewater Treatment Plants ◽  
Temporal Trends ◽  
Wastewater Sample ◽  
Environmental Surveillance ◽  
Rna Detection ◽  
Italian Case ◽  
Sewer Systems ◽  
Sensitive Tool ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Trends ◽  
Positive Results

ABSTRACTSeveral studies have demonstrated the advantages of environmental surveillance through the monitoring of sewer systems for the assessment of viruses circulating in a given community (wastewater-based epidemiology, WBE).During the COVID-19 public health emergency, many reports have described the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in stools from COVID-19 patients, and a few studies reported the occurrence of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewaters worldwide. Italy is among the world’s worst-affected countries in the COVID-19 pandemic, but so far there are no studies assessing the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in Italian wastewaters. To this aim, twelve influent sewage samples, collected between February and April 2020 from Wastewater Treatment Plants in Milan and Rome, were tested adapting, for concentration, the standard WHO procedure for Poliovirus surveillance. Molecular analysis was undertaken with three nested protocols, including a newly designed SARS-CoV-2 specific primer set.SARS-CoV-2 RNA detection occurred in volumes of 250 mL of wastewaters collected in both areas at high (Milan) and low (Rome) epidemic circulation, according to clinical data. Overall, 6 out of 12 samples were positive. One of the positive results was obtained in a Milan wastewater sample collected a few days after the first notified Italian case of autochthonous SARS-CoV-2.The study shows that WBE has the potential to be applied to SARS-CoV-2 as a sensitive tool to study spatial and temporal trends of virus circulation in the population.

scholarly journals SARS-CoV-2 has been circulating in northern Italy since December 2019: evidence from environmental monitoring

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuseppina La Rosa ◽  
Pamela Mancini ◽  
Giusy Bonanno Ferraro ◽  
Carolina Veneri ◽  
Marcello Iaconelli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Wastewater Treatment Plants ◽  
Warning System ◽  
Northern Italy ◽  
Public Health Emergency ◽  
World Health ◽  
Environmental Surveillance ◽  
Rt Pcr ◽  
Italian Case ◽  
Wastewater Samples ◽  
Health Organization

ABSTRACTSevere Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is responsible for the coronavirus disease COVID-19, a public health emergency worldwide, and Italy is among the world’s first and most severely affected countries. The first autochthonous Italian case of COVID-19 was documented on February 21. We investigated the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 emerged in Italy earlier than that date, by analysing 40 composite influent wastewater samples collected - in the framework of other wastewater-based epidemiology projects - between October 2019 and February 2020 from five wastewater treatment plants (WTPs) in three cities and regions in northern Italy (Milan/Lombardy, Turin/Piedmont and Bologna/Emilia Romagna). Twenty-four additional samples collected in the same WTPs between September 2018 and June 2019 were included as blank samples. Viral concentration was performed according to the standard World Health Organization procedure for poliovirus sewage surveillance. Molecular analysis was undertaken with both nested RT-PCR and real-rime RT-PCR assays. A total of 15 positive samples were confirmed by both methods. Of these, 8 were collected before the first autochthonous Italian case. The earliest dates back to 18 December 2019 in Milan and Turin and 29 January 2020 in Bologna. Samples collected in January and February in the three cities were also positive.Our results demonstrate that SARS-CoV-2 was already circulating in northern Italy at the end of 2019. Moreover, it was circulating in different geographic regions simultaneously, which changes our previous understanding of the geographical circulation of the virus in Italy. Our study highlights once again the importance of environmental surveillance as an early warning system, to monitor the levels of virus circulating in the population and identify outbreaks even before cases are notified to the healthcare system.

Polycaprolactone based membranes for the degradation of diclofenac present in water samples using ZnO nanoparticles as the active agent

MRS Advances ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (61) ◽  
pp. 3153-3161
Author(s):  
Marco Antonio Juárez Sánchez ◽  
Miguel Ángel Meléndez Lira ◽  
Celestino Odín Rodríguez Nava
Keyword(s):  
Zno Nanoparticles ◽  
Wastewater Treatment Plants ◽  
Active Agent ◽  
Heterogeneous Photocatalysis ◽  
Nano Particles ◽  
Electrical Characteristics ◽  
Unit Operation ◽  
Fields Of Study ◽  
Drug Contamination ◽  
Positive Results

AbstractDrug contamination in water is one of the current fields of study. Since 1990, the presence of drugs in drinking water has been a concern to scientists and public. In Mexico, these organic compounds are not efficiently removed in wastewater treatment plants; therefore, alternative methodologies have been studied that allow these compounds to have a high percentage of degradation or be completely degraded. One example of these techniques is heterogeneous photocatalysis which has obtained positive results in the degradation of drugs using ZnO nanoparticles. These are commonly selected for their electrical characteristics, even though they disperse in water and an additional unit operation is required to separate them from the liquid medium. To eliminate drugs with nano particles in a single stage, polycaprolactone-based membranes with adhered ZnO nanoparticles, by means of electrospinning, were prepared to degrade drugs such as diclofenac. The technique used has shown to efficiently break down diclofenac in 4 hours according to the capillary electrophoresis readings.

Design and Operation of Small Wastewater Treatment Plants by the Microbial Film Process

1990 ◽  
Vol 22 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 139-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Iwai ◽  
Y. Oshino ◽  
T. Tsukada
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Wastewater Treatment Plants ◽  
Waste Water Treatment ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Small Communities ◽  
Fishing Villages ◽  
Sewer Systems ◽  
Water Treatment Plants ◽  
History Of ◽  
Microbial Film

Although the ratio of sewer systems to population in Japan has been improving in recent years, the construction of sewer systems in small communities such as farming or fishing villages, etc. had lagged behind that of urban areas. However, construction of small-scale sewer systems in farming and fishing villages has been actively carried out in recent years. This report explains the history of the promotion of small-scale sewer systems, why submerged filter beds are being employed in many cases, and introduces the design, operation and maintenance of representative waste-water treatment plants in farming and fishing villages which incorporate de-nitrogen and dephosphorization.

Spatial and temporal trends and effects of contaminants in the Canadian Arctic marine ecosystem: a review

1999 ◽  
Vol 230 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 83-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
D Muir ◽  
B Braune ◽  
B DeMarch ◽  
R Norstrom ◽  
R Wagemann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Marine Ecosystem ◽  
Temporal Trends ◽  
Canadian Arctic ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Trends

scholarly journals Spatial Disparities of COVID-19 Cases and Fatalities in United States Counties

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (16) ◽  
pp. 8259
Author(s):  
Sarah L. Jackson ◽  
Sahar Derakhshan ◽  
Leah Blackwood ◽  
Logan Lee ◽  
Qian Huang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Plains ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Temporal Trends ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Year ◽  
Significant Case ◽  
Urban Rural ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Trends ◽  
Mitigation Policies

This paper examines the spatial and temporal trends in county-level COVID-19 cases and fatalities in the United States during the first year of the pandemic (January 2020–January 2021). Statistical and geospatial analyses highlight greater impacts in the Great Plains, Southwestern and Southern regions based on cases and fatalities per 100,000 population. Significant case and fatality spatial clusters were most prevalent between November 2020 and January 2021. Distinct urban–rural differences in COVID-19 experiences uncovered higher rural cases and fatalities per 100,000 population and fewer government mitigation actions enacted in rural counties. High levels of social vulnerability and the absence of mitigation policies were significantly associated with higher fatalities, while existing community resilience had more influential spatial explanatory power. Using differences in percentage unemployment changes between 2019 and 2020 as a proxy for pre-emergent recovery revealed urban counties were hit harder in the early months of the pandemic, corresponding with imposed government mitigation policies. This longitudinal, place-based study confirms some early urban–rural patterns initially observed in the pandemic, as well as the disparate COVID-19 experiences among socially vulnerable populations. The results are critical in identifying geographic disparities in COVID-19 exposures and outcomes and providing the evidentiary basis for targeting pandemic recovery.

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