Jayaprakash Saththasivam, Shimaa S El-Malah, Tricia A Gomez, Khadeeja A Jabbar, Reshma Remanan, Arun K Krishnankutty, Oluwaseun Ogunbiyi, Kashif Rasool, Sahel Ashhab, Sergey Rashkeev, Meryem Bensaad, Ayeda A Ahmed, Yasmin A Mohamoud, Joel A Malek, Laith J Abu Raddad, Andrew Jeremijenko, Hussein A Abu Halaweh, Jenny Lawler, Khaled A Mahmoud
Raw municipal wastewater from five wastewater treatment plants representing the vast majority of the Qatar population was sampled between the third week of June 2020 and the end of August 2020, during the period of declining cases after the peak of the first wave of infection in May 2020. The N1 region of the SARS-CoV-2 genome was used to quantify the viral load in the wastewater using RT-qPCR. The trend in Ct values in the wastewater samples mirrored the number of new daily positive cases officially reported for the country, confirmed by RT-qPCR testing of naso-pharyngeal swabs...
February 9, 2021: Science of the Total Environment