scientists racing to come up with tests for new covid variants
surveillance in wastewater increases the understanding of which variants are circulating and spreading.
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ottawa researchers are racing to create tests that will track the latest covid-19 variants of concern in wastewater, part of an expanding effort to better understand how the virus that causes covid-19 is changing over time.
more than $338,000 in funding announced this week from genome canada, ontario genomics and illumina for researchers at the university of ottawa, cheo and the university of guelph will support those efforts.
developing new and expanded testing to measure variants is crucial as the variant first identified in india, now known as delta, begins to spread in ontario as it has in other parts of the world.
it is more contagious than the u.k. variant, now known as alpha, which drove the third wave of the pandemic in ontario, pushing hospitals to the brink. the delta variant is also more resistant to vaccines, with one dose offering just 33 per cent protection against covid-19 compared with about 50 per cent with the alpha variant. public health england says it is also more likely to lead to hospitalization than the alpha variant.
only a small percentage of clinical samples in ontario are being sequenced to identify variants of concern, giving an incomplete picture of rates of individual variants. surveillance in wastewater increases the understanding of which variants are circulating and spreading.
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delta is now dominant in the u.k. a small number of cases have been detected in ottawa. this week, dr. lawrence loh, the chief medical officer in peel, the hardest hit region in ontario, said it would dominate there within a month.
loh was likely relying on wastewater data for his understanding of the spread of variants in his region, cheo research cell biologist tyson graber said.
metagenetic wastewater testing, which has been done at the national microbiology lab in winnipeg, will now be expanded to labs in ontario as well.
wastewater monitoring can identify potential outbreaks before they are detected in people through clinical testing. the virus that causes covid-19 can be detected in wastewater up to a week before people develop symptoms and can measure infections in people without symptoms.
graber said genetic sequencing now being done on wastewater can give a picture of what is coming in regions of the province. the funding announced this week will expand that metagenetic testing to research centres across ontario.
meanwhile, graber, who earlier developed a test to identify the alpha variant in wastewater, is working with his team on similar tests for delta and the variant first identified in brazil, now known as gamma. (the world health organization has renamed variants using the greek alphabet.)
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those tests would allow the variants to be tracked in real time, as is now the case with the alpha variant in ottawa. those tests will not be ready for several weeks, graber said.
he describes alpha as “the next scarient that is worrying people” especially since most of ontario’s population has only a single dose of vaccine coverage.
“there is a lot of pressure (to complete the test), but, at the end of the day, we want to make sure it works. we have to balance the time pressure with the quality and reliability of the test.”
eventually, the combination of expanded metagenetic testing and the tests being developed by graber and his team will improve understanding of variants of concern, including those not yet identified.
robert delatolla, associate professor at uottawa’s faculty of engineering and co-lead of the wastewater surveillance project, said the funding would enable wastewater monitoring to better measure variants of concern. the ontario government invested $12.2 million earlier this year for labs and monitoring of the original variant of the virus that causes covid-19. this week’s funding helps extend that monitoring to new variants.
“the money is coming at a very important time,” delatolla said.
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