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home / 世界杯决赛2022

quebec to resume wastewater testing to track covid-19

"it’s a very cost-effective way of looking at the evolution of the sars-cov-2 virus in populations," polytechnique montréal professor says.

by katelyn thomas

mar 2 2022
read time 4 minute read
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quebec has decided to restart tracking covid-19 through wastewater, two months after a pilot project documenting the concentration of the virus in various cities came to an end .

the health ministry confirmed on tuesday it’s in the process of defining various ways to monitor community transmission of covid-19 in quebec.
“in collaboration with the inspq and the environment ministry, the health ministry is working on a wastewater assessment project,” said spokesperson marie-hélène émond. “this project could be added to the various existing covid monitoring tools.”
dominic frigon from mcgill university’s civil engineering department, who co-ordinated the centreau-covid pilot project, said earlier on tuesday his understanding is quebec wants to restart testing right away and to take over monitoring — fulfilling the purpose of the project.
“(it) was a research mandate with the hope that the ministry of health or some structure in the government would take it over,” frigon said. “the initial monitoring will be in three cities, i believe: montreal, quebec and gatineau, and that should restart imminently.”
initially scheduled to span six months, the pilot project ended up lasting a year in quebec city and montreal — but funding didn’t extend beyond december 2021. the timing was unfortunate, frigon said, given that wastewater sampling could have provided data missing during the omicron wave when pcr testing was restricted to priority groups.
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“early in this omicron wave we were wondering ‘are we past the peak? are we at the peak? where’s the peak?’ ” he said. “the wastewater would have told us right away where we would have been standing at that point.”
in december 2021, the health ministry said the project’s preliminary results didn’t prove its ability to provide information that could influence public health interventions across the province. while it recognized the validity of the approach, it said it was awaiting an inspq review on its usefulness and feasibility for controlling the pandemic.
on tuesday, the health ministry pointed out the inspq’s analysis shows “this field is in its infancy and that more studies and experiments are necessary to support its implementation”
scientists working for the federal government, however, have been monitoring wastewater in 65 locations across canada, including in montreal.
“people infected with covid-19 can shed the virus through their stool, even if they do not have any symptoms,” the public health agency of canada said in a statement. “testing a community’s sewage is an important tool. it can tell us if covid-19 is increasing or decreasing in a community, working in tandem with clinical testing data.”
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frigon and sarah dorner, a polytechnique montréal professor who had been sampling wastewater for covid-19 since february 2020, said the project in quebec proved particularly useful during the third wave in quebec city, when the reopening of businesses resulted in superspreader events.
“that was seen faster in the wastewater than it was any in any other data stream, and so that was used to support the decision to close certain businesses again,” dorner said. “that’s kind of like the poster child of how it can be used.”
frigon said quebec city’s local health authority wanted the project to continue “and in the end, they couldn’t get the ministry to budge.”
on top of detecting rising levels of covid-19 in advance when clinical testing is backlogged or unavailable, wastewater sampling can also detect new variants — the omicron variant, dorner said, was detected in montreal samples from dec. 4.
“so that also caught their attention, because it was detectable in the wastewater fairly quickly and so we were able to present these data and our recommendations for what works best,” she said. “it’s a very cost-effective way of looking at the evolution of the sars-cov-2 virus in populations, because you don’t have to sequence 50,000 samples — you can use one sample that’s representative of a larger population.”

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andré veillette, an immunologist at the montreal clinical research institute who has been vocal about the efficiency of the method, said he’s glad to hear it will resume.
“i think now it’s even more relevant than ever to make sure that, one, (cases are) really going down, and two, we don’t have something else that’s popping up, especially as we’re going to eliminate a lot of the measures,” he said. “i think that for the foreseeable future we should continue to do it, even in the summer if there’s not a lot of cases. … that gives you your baseline.”
frigon said there’s still “quite a bit of skepticism” surrounding the method, but that it’s how to get a quick snapshot of the presence of the virus in a given population. he hopes it will help the government plan ahead.
“a pandemic is never finished until it’s finished,” he said.
kthomas@postmedia.com
twitter.com/katelynthomas

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katelyn thomas, montreal gazette
katelyn thomas, montreal gazette

i have been reporting on a range of news at the montreal gazette since 2021, with a particular interest in social issues and human interest stories.

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