Coronavirus: Sewage tests ‘a good screening measure’, says Peter Doherty

Immunologist and Nobel laureate Peter Doherty says testing sewage might sound unattractive, but it can detect levels of infection.

Scientists who have analysed waste water in Dutch cities believe levels of the virus found in sewage can enable epidemiologists to detect the level of infection. Picture: istock

Immunologist and Nobel laureate Professor Peter Doherty has said testing sewage is an efficient and effective way of detecting how many people are being infected by coronavirus – a sentiment echoed by scientists around the world.

Professor Doherty said from a laboratory level, focused testing on hot spots and areas around them are needed to intensely monitor if there are any further traces of the infection.

“Testing sewage sounds pretty unattractive, but in fact, it’s done regularly for testing for poliovirus and norovirus,” he said.

“With those two viruses at least, we can pick up one in 10,000 infected people so that would be a very good screening measure, and I know a number of people in the country looking at this and I expect we’ll do it.”

Immunologist and Nobel laureate Peter Doherty. Picture: Supplied

Scientists who have analysed waste water in Dutch cities believe levels of the virus found in sewage can enable epidemiologists to detect the level of infection. Analysis in Amersfoort, one of the cities sampled, showed COVID-19 was present before cases were reported, professor and microbiologists Gertjan Medema said.

The research also showed people infected with the virus begin excreting traces of COVID-19 days before they start showing symptoms.

According to Professor Medema repeated samples from one treatment plant can catch waste taken from more than one million people and will be truly representative of the population as a whole.

However, experts warn that more work is needed to determine how accurately the technique will measure the COVID-19 outbreak.

Professor Doherty said a rapid antibody test needs to be established to help scientists understand the total scope of the background of the COVID-19 infection.

“Once people are recovered they make antibodies and we would like a test so we can screen for that for a couple of reasons,” he said.

“First to know how many people are antibody positive and secondly to make sure they’re not still excreting the infectious virus.”