Sewage Surveillance System launched in Bengaluru for early detection of Covid clusters

Bengaluru: As the Covid-19 cases continue to rise at an alarming rate in Bengaluru, the Karnataka government has launched the city-wide sewage surveillance system to track the virus even among those who don’t have any symptoms at an early stage.

According to an official statement, initially, the samples will be collected from 45 wards by next week to identify the infection clusters for better resource management.

The statement quoted the additional chief secretary of Urban Development Rakesh Singh as saying, “The system will cover over 65 per cent of Bengaluru’s nine million population by generating over 90 data points per week signalling the emerging Covid-19 clusters or signalling a Covid-19 clusters exit from an area. We are happy to launch this model in Bengaluru, first in India.”

The statement highlights that the drive is an initiative of Covid Action Collab (CAC) which is supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Skoll Foundation-supported, an India-wide collaborative of over 300 organisations and networks, who are working together to provide Covid-19 relief and recovery service to the country’s most vulnerable communities.

The CAC is working with PCMH Restore Health and Wellness and Swasti, the Health Catalyst initiative to help the government of Karnataka in the roll out of this innovative approach to control Covid-19.

The statement says that scientists from all over the world have found that wastewater testing can serve as a cost effective early warning system. The mechanism often predicts a rise in Covid-19 before the number of official cases increase.

The statement read, “The Precisions Publis Health Surveillance System in Bengaluru, the first of its kind in Asia, will test sewage from different areas of the city to identify clusters of infections.”

Early identification of the clusters can guide the Covid response and provide policymakers with the information they require to better allocate limited pandemic resources.

The government got this idea when it observed that most of the cases were located near the Sewage Treatment Plants where the treated water is reused for non-potable purposes.