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Author: Wiida Fourie-Basson
Published: 20/05/2021
Stellenbosch University (SU) plans to implement a wastewater-based surveillance platform to detect institutional SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks on two of its campuses.
“This flows from the institution s commitment to do everything realistically possible to protect the campus community , says Prof Gideon Wolfaardt, director of the Stellenbosch University Water Institute (SUWI) and professor in the Department of Microbiology.
The wastewater-based surveillance platform has been developed in collaboration with researchers from the University of Bath, in partnership with the South African Medical Research Council (MRC), and funded by the United Kingdom s Newton Fund. The campus-based platform will be supported by a grant from Prof Eugene Cloete, Vice-Rector: Research, Innovation and Postgraduate Studies.
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Cape Town’s wastewater treatment stations are being monitored regularly for Covid-19. You can find the latest results on the South African Medical Research Council’s website.
This new way of trying to detect a surge in infections has not come out of the blue. It follows a promising study in which viral RNA of the coronavirus was measured in five untreated wastewater treatment plants in the Western Cape on a single day during the first wave of the epidemic on 18 June 2020.
The study, conducted by the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC), the Cape Town City Metro and researchers from several universities, has been published in the latest issue of the