The Mönchengladbach wastewater could soon be examined for corona viruses. At least that is what a pilot project provides, for which the Niersverband has applied in cooperation with the municipal health department. A spokeswoman for the association and a city spokesperson confirm this on request from our editorial team. “Specifically, it is about an assessment of the pandemic effects on the wastewater and the question of whether and how the infection process can be modeled through wastewater investigations,” said the city spokesman.
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The project, for which the Niersverband and the city have now applied, has been advertised by the federal government and is financed with EU funds. The pilot phase lasts one year. We are looking for 20 locations in selected municipalities where samples are taken twice a week and then examined. According to the tender, “the practical implementation of wastewater monitoring should be tested”. The aim is to identify increasing or decreasing trends in the pandemic and the spread of new corona variants at an early stage.
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Background: People infected with the coronavirus excrete parts of the pathogen – regardless of whether the patient has developed symptoms. The viruses can then be specifically detected in the wastewater using molecular methods (PCR test or genome sequencing). This monitoring is considered an early warning system in the pandemic. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) writes on its own website that the results of the wastewater analyzes are available “several days before the official figures” and can thus be “an important indicator of increasing numbers of infections and emerging hotspots”.
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With the Neuwerk wastewater treatment plant, which is under the leadership of the Niersverband, the city and association have applied for the pilot project. The application deadline was December 10th. “So far we have no information on whether the Mönchengladbach location has been selected,” said the spokeswoman for the Niers Association. Paid content The city of Krefeld has been participating in a study of this kind for about a week. The wastewater there is now regularly analyzed for viruses. Monitoring is at least being planned in Düsseldorf.
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Such studies have already been successful in Munich. The Corona variant Omikron, which is considered to be particularly contagious, was detected in the wastewater there. The results suggest that the number of unreported Omicron cases is high, meaning that the virus variant is more widespread than the proven cases suggest. Because that is also one of the possibilities of wastewater analyzes: Virus variants can theoretically be detected. The only problem: Because only fragments of the virus’ genetic material are present in the wastewater – unlike with swabs from the patient – identification by means of genome sequencing is made more difficult. But it is possible, as the results from Munich show.
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