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Bergen County, which continues to be one of the hardest hit by the coronavirus since New Jersey’s first case, is testing the county’s wastewater for COVID-19, potentially anticipating outbreaks two weeks before it hits strike, officials said.
At a press conference on Friday, Bergen County Director Jim Tedesco announced that through a partnership with Columbia University, the Bergen County Utilities Authority and Aecom, a global engineering firm, the county had tested its wastewater for COVID-19 and hopes to expand testing. statewide.
“Global and US studies have shown that this type of surveillance can provide an early indication of up to two weeks of an increase or decrease in COVID cases in a region,” Tedesco said.
The tests, already in use at colleges and universities like Columbia University and the New Jersey Institute of Technology, have the potential to detect outbreaks 10 days to two weeks earlier, Tedesco said. Testing is one of the few weapons available to fight coronavirus outbreaks and has been used to test viruses and epidemics around the world.
Since March, at least 670 samples have been taken from Bergen County wastewater, Tedesco said.
The test looks for genetic material in sewage that shows a person is infected, experts have previously told NJ Advance Media. Humans secrete viral RNA in feces when infected. Public health officials around the world have used analyzes of wastewater, typically performed at water treatment plants.
The test can detect viral RNA in stool before a person is symptomatic, allowing officials to spot a potential case before the person even thinks about taking a test, said Mitchell Gayer, director of the test. environmental health and safety at NJIT, at NJ Advance. Media.
Early detection allows officials to anticipate any outbreak. After traces of COVID-19 genetic material were found in the sewage of one of the NJIT dormitories in September, 300 students were quarantined and the college was able to anticipate the outbreak.
The university had been taking samples since the start of the semester, but the September 16 test was the first time the coronavirus was at a detectable level.
Columbia University began sampling and testing wastewater in several of its dormitories in early September, the university reported. The viral analysis is being carried out in a university lab that has the capacity to process up to 100 samples per day, the university reported.
Results were available within 24 to 48 hours, depending on the university.
The Bergen County Utilities Authority sewage basin, where samples were taken, serves about 47 municipalities in the county, representing about 580,000 residents, said Julien Neals, the Bergen County Administrator. The test project, which began in March, showed delays of up to two to three weeks, he said.
“For many years, sewage studies have been done to determine the presence of disease,” Neals said. “These include things like opioid levels, noroviruses, measles, and now the presence of COVID-19.”
“It gives a clear picture of the overall health of the community beyond just a fraction of the population that is tested,” Neals said. “This also includes those who have no symptoms.”
In Bergen County, which has the second-highest number of COVID-19 cases in New Jersey with 31,006 cases on Friday, the hope is that testing will anticipate pockets of outbreaks in the county, until the specific municipality, Tedesco said.
And with two promising vaccines, the county could use the same wastewater tests to determine the effectiveness of the vaccines, he said.
Since May, the Columbia University team has been collecting wastewater samples from sites in Bergen County, including the Bergen County Utilities Authority’s Little Ferry treatment plant, the Edgewater treatment plant, several stations. pumping and health care facilities and one of the prisons, said Kartik Chandran Chandran, a professor of environmental engineering who is leading the trials in Bergen County.
The team has been taking samples several times a week continuously since joining the effort, totaling up to 680 tests, Chandran said.
The team uses a pump device called an autosampler that can be programmed to collect samples at a certain frequency, Chandran said. The system is temperature controlled in order to keep the samples at 4 degrees Celsius, he said. After a 24-hour period, samples are taken and driven across the Hudson River by Aecom to a Columbia University lab, he said.
There, the samples are analyzed using CDC protocols, Chandran said.
“Testing for COVID and just about all pathogens in wastewater gives us a picture of the whole community, rather than just the individuals who are tested,” Chandran said. “It gives us a much more complete picture. A complete picture. “
“The image actually leads to real infections, so we can gain insight and save valuable time to take corrective action before the whole community gets infected,” he said.
Additionally, he said, the data derived from wastewater testing can potentially be reduced in places as specific as buildings served by certain pipelines, he said.
“It’s one of the best data sets out there today,” Chandran said. “Not just in the United States but potentially around the world.”
The hope, Tedesco said, is to expand wastewater testing across New Jersey, including to the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission and the Northwest Bergen County Utilities Authority, preventing outbreaks as the second wave continues to hit the state. Tedesco is hoping Gov. Phil Murphy will help expand testing statewide, he said.
The tests were funded by the National Science Foundation, but will continue to be funded by redirecting funding from the CARES Act, Tedesco said. Other institutions, including Rowan University, are currently investigating the implementation of wastewater testing at their facilities.
“The information we’re getting is real, solid information about what’s going on right now,” Tedesco said. “We can really get into this now, right away and start taking corrective action right away, without having to test people.”
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Rodrigo Torrejon can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on twitter @rodrigotorrejon.
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