The research project on Covid19 in the wastewater from the metropolitan area of A Coruña It has already completed its first phase. From this study, the analysis of the sewage from the Goods treatment plant allows you to predict a coronavirus outbreak two weeks in advance. Information that can be transmitted to health authorities for the adoption of measures to help curb infections, according to those responsible for the investigation.
The director of the CovidBens Group, Margarita Poza, has explained in the A Coruña program of Radio Coruña Cadena SER’s opinion that with a mathematical model, designed by Ricardo Cao and Susana Ladra, also professors from the University of Coruña, they have been able to “put into the formula the virus load that reaches the waters of the treatment plant “. He specifies it with an example: “If there are 400,000 copies of the virus per liter, we have six thousand carriers in the population of the Coruña region.”
This is the first epidemiological system in wastewater developed in the world. In fact, the European Commission has asked Poza to explain it in one of its forums and it will do so on December 2. After the completion of the first phase, the Board of Directors of the Bens WWTP approved the renewal of the research project on the 12th of this month.
At the moment the new plan has not been designed but it is possible that an exhaustive search will be carried out by councils or in certain buildings of interest to advance in the degree of anticipation and prevention of Covid19. After a month had passed since the completion of the first phase of the investigation, the team of researchers disintegrated, so it will be necessary to “recruit” them again or hire new ones to continue with the CovidBens project.
On July 13 the alarms went off
The study, which began on April 14, aims to monitor the pandemic through the presence of the coronavirus in the fecal waters of A Coruña, Arteixo, Cambre, Culleredo and Oleiros. According to Margarita Poza, on July 13 “the alarms went off” when verifying the high rate of genetic material of the virus in the sewers of the municipalities of the region.
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