Precision Health Trichy

 Precision Health Platform hosts systematic wastewater surveillance initiatives for multiple cities in India . After successfully completing its Precision Pandemic Health Surveillance initiative on SARS-CoV-2 surveillance in Bangalore, which started in May 2021, the platform has now expanded to other cities. The goal of wastewater surveillance in the city of Trichy includes using wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE), where is can be:

1. Scaled beyond the current pandemic of SARS-CoV-2 and 
2. Can be integrated into governmental surveillance and response mechanisms.  

The team from Centre for Research in Environment, Sustainability Advocacy and Climate Change (REACH) SRM Institute of Science and Technology actively works with the Tiruchirappalli City Municipal Corporation which will help in integrating the result into the public health framework. There may be other stakeholders, such as the Trichy Health Society, who may also have an interest in these findings.

Each environmental sample is collected and tested for each of the aforementioned pathogens. 

• Sample collection sites - 10
• Sample collection frequency - Weekly
• Total environmental samples collected in a week - 10
• Sampling methodology - Grab sampling, two samples from sewage treatment plant site (One from inlet and primary sludge)
• Testing methodology for genomic sequencing (COVID-19) - Whole Genome Sequencing

Samples were homogenized and centrifuged first and then filtered using vacuum filter, Whatman filter paper and PES membrane filter. Concentration of the samples were done using polyethylene glycol (PEG) and sodium chloride (NaCl) for four hours. Finally, samples were centrifuged and eluted with elution buffer. RNA were extracted using QIAamp RNA extraction kit by Qiagen.

The qRT-PCR analysis was done with GenePath Dx CoViDx One v2.1.1TK-Quantitative kit using the following program

Check out the city-wide and site-wise dashboards below for viral load and positivity rates for COVID.

1. The historical charts for the city level site positivity (in %) in the bottom panel, are available along with the indicators of Site positivity (in %) for the current week with comparison with the previous week can be viewed in the left top panel.
2. Also the information regarding the testing are provided in the left bottom panel for understanding the calculation of the site positivity.
3. If you are seeing this on mobile, you might want to click on the dashboard to open it in a separate tab.

1. Select the site on the left side to see it on the map or you can select positive/negative to see all positive sites on the map and filtered sites in the left panel based on this selection.
2. Historical charts in the bottom panel, wherever applicable, are available- Depending on the disease selection for the final result (pos/neg) are available.
3. For the selected site you can see all disease result information on the right bottom panel.
4. If you are seeing this on mobile, you might want to click on the dashboard to open it in a separate tab.

For more information about the platform, please contact Shirish Harshe at shirish@catalysts.org or reach out to us on   Twitter  and  LinkedIn