Time frame: 2020-2022

Overview:
Not long after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, Dr Natalie Prystajecky and Dr Melissa Glier, who had already been studying viruses in wastewater since 2018, were able to quickly leverage an existing collaboration, methods, and equipment for testing enteric viruses in wastewater to be able to test for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Recently adopting an alternative sampling method that allows to test wastewater from an entire community, their team is also working on a method to test wastewater as it exits a building, thus providing key information on how COVID-19 is being spread throughout and among BC communities.

Results:
Funding for their work allowed Drs Prystajecky and Glier’s team to optimize their methods and test for SARS-CoV-2 in five wastewater treatment plants in Metro Vancouver, covering nearly 50% of BC’s population, along two regional health authorities. Weekly reports are shared with medical health officers and epidemiologists within regional health authorities, BC Centre for Disease Control staff, and Metro Vancouver.

Their collaborations have extended to the development of a three-day rapid sequencing method to effectively track COVID-19 variants of concern within a region, and key findings from their studies have been published in the Journal of Environmental Sciences and the American Society for Microbiology, with more to come. With the Omicron variant, wastewater testing has become a critical and necessary component of SARS-CoV-2 monitoring and surveillance.

Rapid SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Research Initiative in BC

Time frame: 2021-2022

Overview:
In a new and unique partnership with Genome BC and Michael Smith Health Research BC (formerly the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research), we funded nine new rapid-response vaccine research projects addressing COVID-19 vaccine research priorities and knowledge gaps. This funding program was developed and implemented in real-time, enabling us to get funding to critical research projects rapidly in order to have high-impact on vaccination roll-out for BC. Collective funding of around $1.3M is allowing for vaccine research that ultimately focuses on public health response and ensuring access to, and confidence in, vaccination programs for everyone in BC.

More specifically, the projects funded address areas such as:

• vaccine breakthrough infections;
• vaccine effectiveness in the context of Variants of Concern and in immune response;
• viral transmission;
• equitable distribution;
• vaccine acceptance and attitudes towards vaccines; and
• vaccine literacy and hesitancy among people who are pregnant or breastfeeding, people who are incarcerated, people who work in long-term care homes and a variety of multicultural communities in the Lower Mainland.

For a summary of the projects, go here.

Results:
We’ll continue to share outcomes of this research as these projects progress. You can stay connected on project updates by visiting this page and subscribing to our newsletter.

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The post Newsletter #29: October 2021 appeared first on Pacific Public Health Foundation.

Last summer, Dr Natalie Prystajecky (Principal Investigator) and Dr Melissa Glier (lead researcher) provided an introduction to wastewater testing for SARS-CoV-2. Here, Drs Glier and Prystajecky provide an update on research progress and how wastewater data continues to be used in the pandemic response.         

Soon after the World Health Organization declared the global outbreak of COVID-19 a pandemic, the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) Public Health Laboratory (PHL) and Metro Vancouver began working together to test wastewater for SARS-CoV-2.

We quickly leveraged an existing collaboration, methods, and equipment for testing enteric viruses in wastewater to be able to test for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. But we weren’t the only lab in Canada doing this work–across the nation, researchers like us were developing and optimizing methods. To ensure that the methods used across Canada were robust and that the data were comparable, the Canadian Water Network’s COVID-19 Wastewater Coalition conducted an Inter-Laboratory Study, hosted by Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory.

The goal of this study was to better understand the variability associated with methods that are being used in Canada, with a focus on method optimization. This study set the stage for sharing methods and data amongst Canadian experts to achieve the collective goal of rapid development of methods that can support public health. The study’s key finding and recommendations have been captured in an outcomes report and a publication where Dr Glier is the second author.

By participating in the inter-laboratory study, our team was able to optimize our methods and apply them to testing for SARS-CoV-2 in five wastewater treatment plants in Metro Vancouver, which cover nearly 50% of BC’s population and located within two regional health authorities.

The SARS-CoV-2 wastewater data is compared to trends in the incidence of community cases by BCCDC’s public health physician Dr David McVae, medical geographer Sunny Mak, and data analyst Michael Kuo. Weekly reports are shared with medical health officers and epidemiologists at the regional health authorities, staff at the BCCDC and Metro Vancouver. In addition, Metro Vancouver launched an online tool which allows residents to track the SARS-CoV-2 viral load in wastewater at each of the region’s five treatment plants. The results (wastewater data graphed with the case data over time) are also available online within the bi-weekly BC COVID-19 Data Summaries.

Furthermore, last year we collaborated with UBC’s assistant professor Dr Ryan Ziels and PhD student Xuan Lin to develop methods to detect SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern in positive wastewater samples. This project led to the development of a rapid sequencing method (3-day) to effectively track COVID-19 variants of concern within a region. More details pertaining to this study can be found on the UBC News website and in this publication.

Our team continues to work on method development and recently adopted an alternative sampling method. For the work to date, we have focused on sampling from wastewater influent (as the wastewater enters the wastewater treatment plant). This allows us to test wastewater from an entire community.

We are now evaluating a method to test wastewater as it exits a building; this allows us to test the wastewater for a specific community. Wastewater samples are collected by placing a testing device called the COVID-19 sewer cage (COSCa) into a manhole as wastewater exits a building.

The COSCa device, which is 3D printed, was created by PhD student Emalie Hayes at Dalhousie University and emphasizes the role of innovation in responding to the pandemic. We are using the COSCa sampling method, in collaboration with the Ziels laboratory, to investigate SARS-CoV-2 and the variants of concern in wastewater discharged from UBC residences. By the end of the project, we will have developed a robust wastewater testing program to support public health decision makers respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in BC.

We are already starting to plan for wastewater testing beyond COVID-19, with an aim to build a comprehensive enhanced wastewater surveillance system for BC. This includes adding additional testing targets of public health concern, such as for surveillance of flu, foodborne pathogens or organisms carrying antimicrobial resistance. We anticipate the wastewater-based testing will have an important role in surveillance systems of the future.

We’d like to recognize our funders: the BCCDC Foundation for Public Health, NSERC, Metro Vancouver, and Health Canada.

We also recognize the enormous contribution of our team and collaborators, including the team that processes and tests the samples: Liam Byrne and Tina Lee (current coops), Tenysha RossVanMierlo, Matthias Krushel, Ziwen Ran (previous co-ops), and Jennifer Kopetzky (technician). We recognize the contributions of the following as well; Christine Tchao, Daisy Yu, Tracy Chan, Dr John Tyson (BCCDC PHL); Dr Ryan Ziels, Xuan Lin, Kevin Kuchinski, (UBC); Dr David McVea, Sunny Mak, Michael Kuo (BCCDC) Farida Bishay, Alvin Louie, Daisy Espinosa, Dr Andjela Knezevic-Stevanovic (Metro Vancouver), Dr. Chand Mangat, Dr. Michael Mulvey, Dr. Anil Nichani (NML/PHAC); Dr. Alex Chik, Bernadette Conant, and Dr. Steve Hrudey (CWN).

The post Project Update: BCCDC’s COVID-19 Wastewater Surveillance in Metro Vancouver Communities appeared first on Pacific Public Health Foundation.

To most, wastewater (aka sewage) is something that is flushed down the toilet and out of sight, out of mind. But to us as researchers at the BC Centre for Disease Control Public Health Laboratory (BCCDC PHL), wastewater may serve as an important tool for tracking the spread of COVID-19.

We (Dr Prystajecky as principal investigator and Dr Glier as lead researcher) have been working together with Metro Vancouver, studying viruses in wastewater since 2018. Our work initially focused on the occurrence of enteric viruses that cause gastrointestinal illness (e.g. vomiting and diarrhea) in wastewater and understanding how they could be removed by wastewater treatment. Furthermore, this wastewater testing could also be used as a tool to monitor viruses such as norovirus, because it can serve as a proxy for diarrheal illness in BC communities. 

On March 11, the World Health Organization declared the global outbreak of COVID-19 a pandemic and our research on enteric viruses in wastewater was put on hold, so the BCCDC PHL could focus on COVID-19. Interestingly, although COVID-19 is primarily a respiratory illness, a significant proportion of people who have tested positive for COVID-19 shed the virus in their feces. In March, researchers in the in Netherlands were the first to report the detection of SARS-CoV-2 genetic material in the city of Amersfoort’s wastewater, even before the first COVID-19 cases were confirmed in that city. Since then, numerous researchers around the globe have been able to detect SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater and apply this work as part of their pandemic response. By testing for SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater, researchers can assess the occurrence of the virus in an entire community.

With methods already developed to detect enteric viruses in wastewater at the BCCDC PHL, we were able to quickly to switch gears and apply these methods to detect SARS-CoV-2 in BC’s wastewater. 

With the support of Metro Vancouver and the BCCDC Foundation, the testing of SARS-CoV-2 RNA, Dr Glier and co-op student Ziwen-Jo Ran have rapidly developed and validated a series of methods to test wastewater for SARS-CoV-2. Our next steps are to carry out a prospective pilot study to detect and quantify SARS-CoV-2 genetic material on a weekly basis in order to identify trends in community transmission. We anticipate that this study will provide crucial data to support the integration of wastewater testing as an important surveillance tool in the fight against COVID-19 in BC.

We’re proud to support cutting-edge research at the BCCDC, and our donors are what help turn evidence into action. You can support more COVID-19 public health research by making a donation to our Emergency Response Fund today.

The post Testing COVID-19 in Wastewater: a tool to help track COVID-19 spread and mitigate second wave in BC appeared first on Pacific Public Health Foundation.