Involved Member: Prof. Tong ZHANG

During the epidemic, Professor Zhang Tong’s team assisted the Government of Hong Kong SAR in establishing a rapid method to monitor the COVID19 gene in sewage. Buildings with infected people can be identified by this method. The result is helpful to identify the infected persons in time for quarantine. Prof. Zhang’s research team first validated a testing method using “positive” samples from a hospital treating COVID-19 patients. This method was used to test 107 sewage samples collected during the third wave of the COVID-19 outbreak in Hong Kong, covering sampling sites associated with a COVID-19 hospital, public housing estates, and conventional sewage treatment facilities. The highest viral titer of 1975 copy/mL in sewage was observed in a sample collected from the isolation ward of the COVID-19 hospital. Sewage sampling at individual buildings detected the virus 2 days before the first cases were identified.

Reference:

Xu, X., Zheng, X., Li, S., Lam, N.S., Wang, Y., Chu, D.K.W., Poon, L.L.M., Tun, H.M., Peiris, M., Deng, Y., Leung, G.M. & Zhang, T. (2021). The first case study of wastewater-based epidemiology of COVID-19 in Hong Kong. Science of the Total Environment, 790, 148000.