REGION – The water boards and the RIVM are now investigating sewage water throughout the Netherlands for particles of the corona virus. For example, the sewage water of all more than 17 million people in the Netherlands is examined. The data is on the updated Dashboard coronavirus of the Central Government and is updated weekly. Sewage research has expanded considerably in a short space of time. From 29 measuring points in April to 80 in August.
And now almost all 318 sewage treatment plants in the Netherlands are sampled every week. The water boards take the samples from the sewage water and make them available to RIVM. He / she does the analysis of the samples and interprets the data. Big Brown Data Sander Mager, board member of the Union of Water Boards: “The water boards are fully committed to helping make this ‘Big Brown Data’ accessible. We are happy to contribute to the major social challenge of combating the corona virus. With the measurements of the sewage water, sources of contamination and trends in specific regions can be identified at an early stage. People who are infected excrete virus particles even before they experience complaints. These are valuable data that are ahead of data from, for example, test results and hospital admissions. ” Virus Particles Researchers test sewage water collected over 24 hours. No infectious virus is measured, but genetic material of the virus, called RNA, which determines the virus properties. The test results show how many virus particles are in the sewage water. Not all people who have COVID-19 show the virus in their stools and some have more virus particles in their stools than others. Differences per region and per moment The concentration of human waste water can differ per region and per moment, and thus the amount of virus particles per milliliter. That is because the sewage entering the treatment does not only come from households. It is often mixed with industrial waste water and ‘non-sewage’ water (incoming ground or surface water). In addition, rainwater is an important cause of the dilution of household waste water. A method is being developed to make these differences transparent in order to better interpret the measurement data from regions.
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