Water is life but this evidence coronavirus could some 5 in 8 for days. Clean water is key one in 3 people dont have access to safe Drinking Water. And shortages happy to places like zimbabwe. Waiting for a water truck a daily chore before the crisis now demanded spiking washing hands frequently cleaning everything. Waste Water Testing is also key to staving off the virus and detecting a 2nd wave. Of aids in the water. Im going to get jones welcome to our coverage not in special and itll be in use how big a role does water play in the fight against the pandemic and im home. Well ask a water expert in washington and its not just Drinking Water were talking about monitoring waste water is also important. This is where it all ends up the Sewage Treatment plant the basins are full of corona virus like in any such facility but the virus is already dead by the time it gets here it can however still be detected in the water. And the party at the plant manager andre apapa shows us a sample. Could the corona virus be in there. That is born out of an instance on the yes the corona virus is in there especially in this sample it comes directly from the sewers we assume the largest amount of the viruses in there and in the course of the purifying process the water gets cleaner and cleaner you can see that here then there are the next steps it gets a lot clearer and this is the last step that means the water leaves here pure. At the edge of the huge Company Premises is this in conspicuous box inside is a fully automatic water extraction system samples are taken here 365. 00 days a year before the sewage water is purified it sounds simple but it isnt because the water contains things that could plug the pipes. In a. Vacuum pump is installed in the sewage extraction system on the suction hose leads to the sewer and the water sample enters the system through a sieve. Why do you need a sieve. To sivas designed to keep some of the material in the waste water out of the system. Some of the samples are on lies at the inhouse laboratory during regular routine checks some are stored in this refrigerator the containers are sent to the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research in lighting. 1000 other german Sewage Treatment plants send samples there to for analysis and comparison among decreased on the concentration of viruses and wastewater its possible to conclude how high the level of infection is in cologne for example when things go back to normal levels drop if we examine it on a daily basis or several times a week we can see if levels rise again we can see if we have to take extra precautions or if we can reduce some measures to work. If the scientists calculations are accurate they can develop models to compare the measurements in different regions even if the water is diluted by rain. India and 900. 00 wastewater Treatment Plants in germany come be on lies to painting a picture of the coronavirus is expansion. And for more lets bring in a pizza group that hes chief executive officer at the Water Research foundation in washington d. C. Good to have you with us. Let me start with the connection between waste water and the virus we heard that the virus found in sewage is always dead is that true or could it still be contagious we have never actually found live virus in the sewage so we dont have any any. Evidence that the virus is actually contagious in sewage at the same time we want to be careful and make sure that sewage workers are using personal protective equipment because we know there are other pathogens in sewage and of course because wastewater tracing is already done for for certain drugs and so forth what is the threshold of concentration of coronavirus and sewage that would actually represent a concern. Well we havent seen any evidence of fecal to oral transmission of corona virus coated 90 but so we dont actually have a good sense of whether theres a threshold level that would be of concern but again thats why we want to make sure that sewer workers are using their personal protective equipment just just to be safe but what exactly are you looking at my understanding is that in in testing wastewater for corona virus that gives us an idea about the concentration of the pandemic in a certain area is that correct that is correct and wastewater has a story to tell about the health of the community and so when were testing wastewater what were testing for is the genetic signal of the virus the r. N. A. So were not testing the virus itself and we have found that that genetics a know is very closely correlated with the presence of disease in communities so it does provide the opportunity to track the progress of the pandemic in communities so you would say this is a pretty accurate indication to go by also perhaps to introduce new lock downs if necessary. Well we think this information is very helpful to supplement the information we have from clinical testing its not a substitute for clinical testing but the importance of this information is that it can provide an Early Warning in fact there have been a number of studies that have shown that the genetic signal and waste water was seen as much as a week before the 1st clinical case was identified in a community and so we think it does provide very Important Information of course you need water in order to get that information you need waste and water and unfortunately in some parts of the war well water is a scarce commodity also due to climate change. What chance do people that an arid areas lets say in africa also in parts of asia half in the fight against corona virus this is a very significant challenge and were currently working with African Research partners to introduce these wastewater tracing techniques to understand the presence of covert 19 in communities and i know those partners are also working very hard to make sure that theres fresh water available for communities to be able to wash their hands and we know thats such an important part of protecting individuals against the corona virus so it is a very significant challenge is to only found in wastewater and go ready say so far there has been a life one found a can it also get into into clean water tap water is that safe. Very important question and as i said we havent seen the presence of coated 19 in waste water nor have we seen it in tap water in 1000 sars coby to the virus is very sensitive to chlorine and so we expect that this infection of tap water would be quite protective against sars kovi too but we have not seen the virus in Drinking Water. How are we going about enjoying some i mean you mentioned chlorine so swimming pools should be safe what if i want to jump into a lake or the open sea well what i would say is is that our biggest concern actually related to Recreational Activities and swimming is social distancing and we know that infection through the respiratory route through the breeding route of exposure is a very important way that people are becoming sick and so i would be more concerned about making sure that people who are maintaining social distancing when they were in a pool or a lake or the ocean then i would be worried about the presence of the virus in that water but these are areas of continuing research and thats why the Water Research foundation were making sure that we get the science right in understanding both the presence of the virus and wastewater in the potential for the virus in Drinking Water other Water Supplies all right peter at the chief executive officer at the Water Research foundation in washington thank you so much for your time thank you as well. Time for you questions science correspondent eric williams. What is a virus how does it were. A virus is little more than a collection of Genetic Information either are in a or a d. N. A. Protected by a protein coat which is sometimes covered by in an outer fatty the layer viruses are not viewed as full fledged life forms because they dont make their own energy they they have to steal it to replicate viruses have to invade living cells like those in your respiratory tract theyre able to dock on to specific receptors on the cells or membrane and theyre either absorbed or they inject their genetic code into its interior now once inside the invader hijacks cellular machinery to churn out more viruses which which burst out of the infected cell to infect others that whole process and how your immune system deals with that is what we call viral infection and disease. Scientists think of to the originated in bats does it kill them as well if they adapted to live with it bats or are amazing in lots of ways not not least because of their immune systems many studies that show that although they can carry many viruses they somehow seem to be quite resistant to the diseases that those viruses can cause we think that ability has evolved because many bat species live in vast colonies that roost in very crowded conditions where any infection could quickly wipe out huge numbers of animals and then were slowly. Learning more about how we think it all works in a recent study for example that looked at how bat cells reacted to the corroded virus that causes murders canadian researchers found evidence that the animals immune systems come to come to terms with the infection rather than trying to fight it off so they dont get rid of the virus but they dont get sick either and that mechanism likely works the same with other coronaviruses as well. And just before we go from face mask shortages to mask simply littered on city streets or as in this case australias beautiful beaches a clean ups underway on sydneys coastline after this all washed up its debris from at least 40 containers that fell off a cargo ship after it also included medical supplies. Wellington biden is a savior of the forest. Because 210 acres of land in central gonna his own peace we call to mating and conserving wood n. T. T. How to practice Sustainable Forestry its all about training here become power and people also go on back and do it themselves so got to have their ladies come fall and come africa. Next. Impressive and some real. India nature has been taking a breather. The lockdown has shown how much more still needs to be done time again is good because they are very high. School its really funny for the environment and the people. In 60 minutes on t. W. What do they dream of at night. As cleaners they see the face of horror. Their job censoring for the social media industry. In manila there are thousands of socalled content monitors to take place for terrifying images from online platforms. A recent job for starvation wage the strain is enormous. The cleaners social medias shadow industry starts june 8th on t. W. Hello everyone and welcome to this new edition of eco africa the environment magazine brought to you by channel t. V. Here in nigeria and saving uganda and germanys doyce about our new