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On the #wildlifehealth agenda today - COVID and country foods working group seminar! Today, we are learning about SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater with Dr. Banu Ă–rmeci and Richard Kibbee from @Carleton_U to address concerns and questions about how #wildlife may be exposed to the virus.
Interesting to learn that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is one of the least persistent viruses/bacteria/prions etc. in the water environment. This is good news!
Also, this presentation gets a thumbs up from my 6yo for using the
emoji in a totally appropriate setting. Humans can shed viral genetic material via feaces, but infectious virus has not been detected in wastewater sludge or surface waters. Although more work is needed.
emoji in a totally appropriate setting. Humans can shed viral genetic material via feaces, but infectious virus has not been detected in wastewater sludge or surface waters. Although more work is needed.
For those that are interested, here is some reading - "SARS-CoV-2 RNA was found to be significantly more persistent than infectious SARS-CoV-2, indicating that the environmental detection of RNA alone does not substantiate risk of infection" https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.estlett.0c00730
"... up till now, no case of transmission via contact with sewage or contaminated water has been reported and the few studies conducted with these aqueous matrices have not detected infectious viruses"... but studies are limited to data on this topic https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969721007889?via%3Dihub
You can track which animals have been reported to be susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 here - https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/animals.html
The main transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to animals remains human contact - a discussion on how this transmission can be found here in relation to mink - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2021.663815/full
