WATER QUALITY AND STANDARDS IN COVID-19 ERA
WITH THE GROWING escalation in Covid-19 infection in the country and the challenges associated with individual testing, the importance of introducing a nationwide wastewater surveillance programme becomes more immediate and relevant to complement national interventions.
This could offer a cost-effective method of understanding the pandemic trends, provide an early warning system, identify hotspots and track the waves of the transmission as the pandemic unfolds. To date, the wastewater-based epidemiology approach has been successfully piloted in developed countries where there is wide coverage of water borne sanitation, such as the Netherlands, US, etc.
However, given the varied water and sanitation service delivery mechanisms in South Africa (and lack thereof), we are in a unique position to pioneer the development and piloting of an all-encompassing water and sanitation-focused approach for the surveillance of Covid-19 spread in less developed communities.
Risk hotspot mapping has proven to be an effective preparedness strategy in previous complex and dynamic extreme disaster events.
This approach is now being replicated in an epidemiological risk context and adopted by most of the affected countries.
It allows the countries to visualise Covid-19 incidences through time lines in specific geographical locations.
The Covid-19 pandemic poses extensive challenges, ranging from the need for early detection to preventive actions such as containment and isolation. Rapid action is vital to outpace Covid-19.
In response, the Water Research Commission (WRC) in partnership with the SA Local Government Association, is leading the Water Quality (wastewater and non-sewer) national surveillance programme aimed to complement national initiatives in dealing with the pandemic.
The intent of this programme is to pilot and facilitate the implementation of a nationwide initiative for the surveillance of Covid-19 spread in South African communities using a water and sanitation-focused approach as means of supporting the current Covid-19 surveillance initiatives, and also to serve as an early warning for the resurgence of the virus and other water-borne disease outbreaks.
For this reason, implementation of the wastewater surveillance initiative will follow a three-phased approach, with phase one being the proof of concept aimed at optimising sample design, testing and fine-tuning sampling protocol, preliminary sampling and analysis of wastewater samples from selected metropolitan cities.
This will be followed by phase two – pilot scale monitoring where partnerships for pilot-scale monitoring will be established and will see the commissioning of a collaborative monitoring initiative in provincial hotspots using the sampling and testing protocols developed in phase one.
Phase three – national wastewater surveillance is where once partnerships with capable and compliant laboratories have been formalised, the WRC and partners will co-ordinate the implementation of the national programme.
Bhagwan, Kalebaila and Naidoo are officials at the Water Research Commission
The Covid-19 pandemic poses wide-ranging
challenges