ArticleThe Science of the total environment2022
Wastewater surveillance allows early detection of SARS-CoV-2 omicron in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
Article in The Science of the total environment, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Systematic Review of Methodological Approaches to SARS-CoV-2 Wastewater Surveillance.Viruses · 2026Pooled it
- Implementation of SARS-CoV-2 Wastewater Surveillance Systems in Germany-Pilot Study in the Federal State of Thuringia.Microorganisms · 2026Article
- SARS-CoV-2 wastewater genomic surveillance: approaches, challenges, and opportunities.Genome biology · 2026Review
- Integrated monitoring of enveloped viruses in hospital environments: Detection, persistence, and implications for infection control.PloS one · 2026Article
- Wastewater as an early indicator for short-term forecasting COVID-19 hospitalization in Germany.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Evaluating Interlaboratory Variability in Wastewater-Based COVID-19 Surveillance.Microorganisms · 2025Article
- Novel Workflows for Separate Isolation of Pathogen RNA or DNA from Wastewater: Detection by Innovative and Conventional qPCR.Bio-protocol · 2025Article
- Wastewater-based surveillance for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 variants in Gwangju, Republic of Korea.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
- Article
- Development, testing and validation of a SARS-CoV-2 multiplex panel for detection of the five major variants of concern on a portable PCR platform.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
12 authors at 6 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has demonstrated its importance to support SARS-CoV-2 epidemiology complementing individual testing strategies. Due to their immune-evasive potential and the resulting significance for public health, close monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VoC) is required to evaluate the regulation of early local countermeasures. In this study, we demonstrate a rapid workflow for wastewater-based early detection and monitoring of the newly emerging SARS-CoV-2 VoCs Omicron in the end of 2021 at the municipal wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) Emschermuendung (KLEM) in the Federal State of North-Rhine-Westphalia (NRW, Germany). Initially, available primers detecting Omicron-related mutations were rapidly validated in a central laboratory. Subsequently, RT-qPCR analysis of purified SARS-CoV-2 RNA was performed in a decentral PCR laboratory in close proximity to KLEM. This decentralized approach enabled the early detection of K417N present in Omicron in samples collected on 8th December 2021 and the detection of further mutations (N501Y, Δ69/70) in subsequent biweekly sampling campaigns. The presence of Omicron in wastewater was confirmed by next generation sequencing (NGS) in a central laboratory with samples obtained on 14th December 2021. Moreover, the relative increase of the mutant fraction of Omicron was quantitatively monitored over time by dPCR in a central PCR laboratory starting on 12th December 2021 confirming Omicron as the dominant variant by the end of 2021. In conclusions, WBE plays a crucial role in surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 variants and is suitable as an early warning system to identify variant emergence. In particular, the successive workflow using RT-qPCR, RT-dPCR and NGS demonstrates the strength of WBE as a versatile tool to monitor variant spreading.
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