The prolonged viral shedding also induces a potential delay in the detection of new variants due to the time needed to generate enough new cases for a significant viral signal in an environment dominated by virus shed by the recovered population. Furthermore, the inclusion of recovered individuals’ viral shedding into the model predicts earlier transmission dynamics and slower decreasing trends in wastewater viral RNA. We find that the viral shedding from the recovered population can become higher than the infectious population after the transmission peak, which leads to a decrease in the correlation between wastewater viral RNA and case report data. To determine the impact of recovered individuals’ viral shedding on the utility of wastewater surveillance, we develop a quantitative framework that incorporates population-level viral shedding dynamics, measured viral RNA in wastewater, and an epidemic dynamic model. Yet, the persistent shedding in the latter group could confound wastewater-based epidemiological inference, especially during the late stage of an outbreak when the recovered population outnumbers the infectious population. While both infectious and recovered individuals shed virus into wastewater, epidemiological inferences using wastewater often only consider the viral contribution from the former group. Wastewater surveillance has been widely used to track and estimate SARS-CoV-2 incidence.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |