China Covid surge: US considers wastewater procured from international flights to track mutation of virus

Image used for representational purpose. AP

The US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention is mulling over a plan to sample wastewater procured from international flights to detect any potential cases of Covid-19.

As the threat of a surge in Covid cases grows and with countries across the world implementing travel restrictions, experts think that such a policy would be a better solution to track the virus and will enable authorities to slow down its entry into the country.

According to a report by Reuters, US has also expanded its genome sequencing program at airports this week.

China is probably witnessing 9,000 Covid-related deaths daily as the country is experiencing a new wave of Covid infections, claims UK-based health data firm Airfinity.

Wastewater testing better solution to track Covid

Experts say that wastewater testing has proven to be a better solution to track the mutation of the virus than travel restrictions like mandatory testing.

Dr Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota said that travel restrictions have so far failed to curb the spread of the virus.

“They seem to be essential from a political standpoint. I think each government feels like they will be accused of not doing enough to protect their citizens if they don’t do these,” he said.

Echoing the views of Dr Michael, Dr Eric Topol from Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, California said that wastewater testing would provide a clearer picture of how the virus is mutating.

Getting wastewater samples tested from international planes will be “a very good tactic”, Topol said. He added that US needs to upgrade its surveillance as “China is so unwilling to share its genomic data.”

Results of previous wastewater testing promising

Earlier this year in July, French researchers screened aircraft wastewater from two flights from Ethiopia to France. RT-PCR testing of the samples revealed the presence of the Omicron variant.

The test, therefore, showed that despite being required to take a Covid test before boarding, most of the passengers were still infected.

“Monitoring SARS-CoV-2 circulation in wastewater has already proven to be an effective tool for tracking infections at the community level and has been correlated with the number of individual cases,” the researchers concluded.

They added, “Applying such an approach to aircraft wastewater may be a powerful tool for controlling SARS-CoV-2 importation and exportation, a risk which exists despite strict measures to control passengers through mandatory clinical negative testing.”

Similarly in California, the sampling of community wastewater detected the presence of the Alpha, Delta, Epsilon and Omicron variants among people.

Countries that have announced restrictions for Chinese travellers

India, US, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan and South Korea are among the countries that have announced restrictions for Chinese travellers.

People from China travelling to India have been asked to produce a negative Covid test before arriving, with those who test positive put in quarantine.

Japan too has said that it will require a negative COVID-19 test upon arrival for travellers from China and those testing positive will have to undergo a week in quarantine. Meanwhile, Tokyo plans to limit airlines increasing flights to China.

Malaysia has put additional tracking and surveillance measures in place, while the Philippines is also considering imposing mandatory Covid-19 tests for travellers from China.

With inputs from agencies

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