In Athens, capital of Greece, collections of wastewater are analysed on a daily basis at the University of Athens to detect the level of SARS-CoV-2 in order to assess the extent of the viral load in circulation in the population.
In early November, before the country imposed a second lockdown, scientists at Athens’ wastewater treatment plant had already foreseen that a measure of this caliber was needed to control the upsurge they were witnessing via wastewater analysis.
“Before this announcement, the total viral load in the wastewater was really, really high,” said analytical chemist Ekaterini Galani, a PhD candidate at the University to Reuters.
During the first wave of the pandemic, Greece was one of the few European countries spared from a high number of cases and fatalities. However, since October it has witnessed a rapid rise in infections forcing authorities to decree a second lockdown in early November.
“Some weeks after the lockdown we observed a really important decrease of the viral load of SARS-COV-2 in wastewater samples, reflecting that the restrictions were really important for the population.”
Galani also added: “The epidemiological information obtained from this analysis is used by the respective authorities to adapt measures at the right time and control the ongoing pandemic.
According to the Greek chemists, the advantages of wastewater surveillance is that it is a noninvasive tool to monitor the pandemic by calculating the real number of infections, both of symptomatic and asymptomatic citizens.
