Why US mulling testing wastewater from airline as COVID-19 cases rise in China?

Washington, Dec 31: As COVID-19 infections surge in China, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is sampling wastewater taken from international aircraft to track any emerging new variants.

According to infectious disease experts, the policy would effectively track the coronavirus and narrow its entrance into the United States, Reuters reported.

Learning from the earlier mistakes, CDC has adopted strict measures for the travellers from China. This step to slow the spread of Covid-19 in US given the lack of adequate and transparent epidemiological and viral genomic sequence data being reported from the China. These data are critical to monitor the case surge effectively and decrease the chance for entry of a novel variant of concern.

Wastewater sampling

It must be noted that airports continue to be one of the most common ways that Covid-19 variants arrive in new countries and Airplane wastewater analysis is among several options that would help detect the disease early on and help slow it down.

Wastewater samples will be sent to the Laboratory for PCR tests and then sent for genome sequencing. Based on the test results, scientists can build an anonymized, clearer picture of the current state of the coronavirus infected population in the area. Viral loads and variant composition can be monitored in specific populations by collecting samples at wastewater treatment plants or from wastewater streams with known origins.

The CDC is considering the same measure to control the disease in the country, spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund said in an email to Reuters.

Meanwhile, the US has decided to allow only the Covid negative travellers from China. The fliers travelling into the US from China would now have to furnish a negative Covid-19 test result before flying out. The decision is obviously meant to check further spread of the new Covid variant in the US.

According to Federal health officials, the US-bound travellers would need to get a test no more than two days before flying out of China. The travellers would also have to show proof of the test report with a negative result to their airline before boarding in China. Currently, the travellers would have a choice in the form of a PCR test or an antigen self-test, according to media reports.

Not only the travellers from China are being put under the restrictions but, according to the reports, the travellers flying from Hong Kong and Macau will also be asked to furnish Covid negative report. Similarly, all the passengers flying from popular third-country gateways like Seoul, Toronto and Vancouver will also be subjected to the requirement.

However, French researchers say requesting a mandatory negative COVID-19 report before onboarding international flights are unlikely to prevent Covid from spreading. As per a report, they found the Omicron variant in wastewater from two commercial aeroplanes that flew from Ethiopia to France in December 2021.