Sewage Covid-19 test cost-effective, quick and accurate, say experts amid surge in cases
SYDI ALIF03 Jan 2023 08:00am
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Galen Centre for Health and Social Policy chief executive officer, Azrul Mohd Khalib in response to the government's safety measure revealed that SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes Covid-19, besides being a respiratory, airborne virus can also be excreted in feces and urine in asymptomatic carriers and in recently recovered patients.
"Having a feasible and reliable epidemiological surveillance is absolutely important to combat the spread of this disease, and improve preparedness and response to future outbreaks.
"Testing wastewater or sewage is part of that mechanism. It is cost-effective, quick and accurate," Azrul reflected on the approach which received criticism from the public.
He also pointed out that the test is not a new method as it has been used to screen for polio, cholera, TB, antimicrobial resistance and other health threats as necessary for decades.
"By measuring SARS-CoV-2 levels in untreated wastewater over time, health authorities can determine if infections are increasing or decreasing in a community.
"The results are an early indicator that the number of people with Covid-19 in a population is increasing or decreasing. When coupled with genomic sequencing, it enables us to know what variants or subvariants are present in the community," the founder of a health and social policy centre said.
Meanwhile, head of The Lung Centre at Pantai Hospital Kuala Lumpur, Dr Helmy Haja Mydin shared that Malaysia has been implementing the method in question since June 2022.
"It is a form of supplementary surveillance in keeping with endemicity.
"It plays a role as an early warning measure as it can help detect the presence of new variants and also gives us an idea regarding prevalence, and we don’t do it just for travellers from China.
"We’ve been doing it for polio surveillance for example," the lung specialist elaborated on the wastewater test's significance.
