Volta

From crisis to clarity: tackling the sampling strategy challenge in airport wastewater surveillance during COVID-19

Wastewater surveillance at airports has gained interest as a tool for early pathogen detection, but current evidence remains largely feasibility-focused and provides limited guidance on where sampling efforts should be prioritised. In this study, we go beyond feasibility assessments and present a comparative framework for evaluating wastewater-based genomic surveillance at airports. From January to April 2023, wastewater samples were collected at Frankfurt and Berlin airports from single aircraft, lavatory trucks, a sewer combining aircraft and airfield wastewater, and an airport terminal. Viral RNA was concentrated and extracted, followed by short-read amplicon sequencing, digital PCR quantification, and variant annotation with SnpEff. Sequencing success and genome coverage varied by sample type. Aircraft wastewater showed variable coverage (median 20.2-52.1%) due to low SARS-CoV-2 …

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