Weimar (dpa/th) - According to a study in Thuringia, the examination of waste water in sewage treatment plants reliably indicates the spread of corona. It can be analyzed quickly when one virus variant is replaced by another, the Bauhaus University Weimar and the company Analytik Jena reported on Monday during a visit by Health Minister Heike Werner (left) in Weimar. The university and the company are working together on a wastewater monitoring project, which is being funded by the state with 370,000 euros.
According to the project partners, the research project includes 23 sewage treatment plants and thus around 40 percent of the Thuringian population. The study, which has been running since October 2021, has shown that the detection of pathogens - i.e. viruses, bacteria or other microorganisms - in wastewater is in principle possible and useful.
Using the example of the Sars-CoV-2 pathogen, it was found that the data from the wastewater are usually days ahead of the incidences over time. When fewer tests were finally carried out for corona and therefore fewer cases were reported by the Robert Koch Institute, this information was offset by a constantly high or even increasing trend in the measured values in the wastewater. Wastewater monitoring has proven to be a suitable forecasting tool.
