KU’s wastewater testing project could give Kansas communities early COVID-19 warning
Early results from a project in Kansas show tests of a community’s wastewater can detect COVID-19 outbreaks about a week before individual testing would show an increase in cases.
The project, launched in the spring by the University of Kansas School of Engineering and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, tested wastewater in about a dozen communities in eastern Kansas to see if the coronavirus was present in the area and the severity of the outbreak. It has since expanded into areas of western Kansas.
Belinda Sturm, associate vice chancellor for research at KU, said she started looking into intersections of viruses’ genetic material and wastewater about 15 years ago.
When initial studies came out from the Netherlands, Massachusetts and other areas showing that coronavirus outbreaks could be detected in wastewater, she already had the equipment and skillset to run the tests in Kansas.
With asymptomatic cases and the time it can take to develop symptoms, Sturm said it can be difficult to realize an outbreak before it’s too late. By testing wastewater systems, she said researchers can find genetic materials that are transferred from the virus and warn communities to be more cautious and follow guidelines because of the presence of COVID-19 in their area.
“For every person that you can stop from spreading it to two more people or four more people, that greatly reduces the size of that outbreak,” Sturm said. “So, a one week lead time with how many people an infected person can expose can greatly reduce case numbers.”
The test results can also send a signal to hospitals and other healthcare providers in an area to ramp up on materials in order to treat an increase of patients with coronavirus, said Tom Stiles, who directs the Bureau of Water for KDHE.
But Sturm said researchers and public health officials are still figuring out how to use the information.
“The data is so new,” she said, “we have to get to the point where we know how to use it and have confidence in it.”
While wastewater can contain RNA from the virus, Stiles said there is no evidence showing coronavirus can be contracted through drinking or wastewater.
Stiles said it currently costs about $500 to analyze each sample within a few days of collection, but KU researchers are looking for ways to conduct the tests faster and cheaper so that tests can be done more frequently. If those changes are made, Stiles said KDHE can also look at the possibility of testing more mid-size towns across the state.
For now, he imagines the tests will be expanded to areas like Johnson, Sedgwick and Wyandotte counties, which have denser populations and had early outbreaks of the coronavirus. Stiles also hopes the testing can be implemented there sometime in fall or winter to prepare for a potential rise in coronavirus cases during flu season.
“To give us as much heads up lead time to marshal our health resources appropriately,” he said, “so that they’re not caught flat-footed and are able to take on the next wave.”