Samples taken from the wastewater confirm the almost exclusive presence on the national territory of the Delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, associated with a great genetic variability with the presence of many mutations including those of the so-called ‘Delta Plus’.
It is the result of the second flash survey conducted by the National Institute of Health (Iss) with the working group coordinated by Giuseppina La Rosa of the Environment and Health Department and by Elisabetta Suffredini of the Department of Food Safety, Nutrition and Veterinary Public Health of the ISS.
According to the research, which analyzed 92 samples collected in 16 Regions and Autonomous Provinces in the period 4-8 October 2021, all the positive samples characterized were precisely of ‘Delta’, in accordance with what reported by the epidemiological clinical surveillance relating to the same period of sampling. In particular, 60% of the samples confirmed SARS-CoV-2 genome positivity and 23 samples were characterized by sequencing the region coding for the spike protein. The flash survey will be repeated on a monthly basis.
“The prospects for this activity are very promising – says Marco Martuzzi, director of the Environment and Health Department of the ISS – the surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in urban wastewater is a complementary tool to microbiological and epidemiological surveillance for the study of epidemic trends. , but also to explore the genetic variability of the virus “.
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