In search of an early warning system for the dreadful Coronavirus, Hyderabad-based Dr S Venkata Mohan, who has a specialisation in environmental engineering, spends the early hours of the morning handling sewage. The senior scientist with the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (CSIR-IICT), has been monitoring anthropogenic material that’s flushed down the toilets, since June of last year. His team includes researchers from the CSIR-IICT, the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), and the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR) in Ghaziabad. He says, “Covid-19 is caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2. We came across reports last year about the SARS-CoV-2 ribonucleic acid (RNA) being present in the stool of persons infected with Covid-19, regardless of whether they showed symptoms of the disease or not. [This means] that if we track this wastewater or sewage, we could establish and adjust public health management strategies.”

Dr Swapneil Parikh