81% of worldwide flights into NYC had SARS-CoV-2 in waste, small trial finds

In a small trial, plane wastewater proved straightforward and helpful for monitoring the SARS-CoV-2 variants touching down within the US, the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention reported Thursday.

The examine discovered that the testing may very well be completed cheaply and simply; it solely added about three further minutes to plane upkeep occasions at airports and did not require hassling passengers with nostril swabs or different sampling strategies. Furthermore, the testing may very well be simply scaled up as wanted because the world largely abandons different SARS-CoV-2 testing and monitoring methods, the CDC authors concluded.

“This investigation demonstrated the feasibility of plane wastewater surveillance as a low-resource method in contrast with particular person testing to watch SARS-CoV-2 variants with out direct traveler involvement or disruption to airport operations,” the authors concluded.

The CDC carried out the examine in collaboration with biotech firm Ginkgo Bioworks. Collectively, they collected and examined wastewater samples from 80 flights into New York Metropolis’s John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport between August 1 and September 9, 2022. All of the flights had been worldwide, originating from the UK, the Netherlands, and France.

Total, 65 airborne sewage samples from 80 flights (81 p.c) had been optimistic for SARS-CoV-2. The speed of optimistic samples was the identical among the many three international locations: the Netherlands samples had been 81 p.c optimistic, with 22 of 27 samples optimistic; so was France, with 22 of 27 samples optimistic; as was the UK, with 21 of 26 samples optimistic.

The researchers had been capable of get 27 genome sequences from 25 of the samples. All the genomes revealed omicron sublineages, largely BA.5 in addition to BA.4.6 and BA.2.75.

The examine provides to different proof that airport and plane wastewater surveillance can play a job in monitoring the unfold of pathogens, comparable to SARS-CoV-2. And it dovetails into bigger pandemic-era efforts by the CDC to mix wastewater sampling into its pathogen surveillance techniques.

This has confirmed helpful in numerous locations across the nation for monitoring early surges of COVID-19 in addition to monitoring the unfold of polio in New York. Within the case of SARS-CoV-2, viral shedding in feces can start very early in an an infection, probably earlier than an individual has signs.

There are limitations to the plane surveillance, in fact. It is going to be largely useful for longer flights, the place individuals are extra probably to make use of the rest room. And it is unclear if all airways will conform to the sampling. Final, as a result of worldwide vacationers can have numerous connecting flights earlier than arriving within the US, it may not be potential to trace the origin of variants that arrive within the US.

Nonetheless, the authors say the surveillance has its place. “Together with traveler-based surveillance, plane wastewater monitoring can present a complementary early warning system for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 variants and different pathogens of public well being concern.”