Researchers who have been collecting and testing samples from wastewater processing plants across the U.S say they found fragments of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.

Based on this result, the U.S government has invested millions of dollars to create a National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS). This system would comprise a network of 400 testing sites spread across 19 states to be coordinated by the CDC.

The coronavirus has a lipid coating. When the virus invades the body, it rapidly mutates itself, and copies are shed into the intestines. The fatty parts of the virus then stick to the fats in the stool.

The study revealed that genetic material from the virus gets flushed down the toilet into the wastewater stream. The virus can then be detected by the same kinds of test laboratories are using to detect the virus from nasal swabs: the real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR).

A CDC microbiologist and leader of the NWSS project, Amy Kirby says information can be obtained on coronavirus cases in a given community, “as long as people are using a toilet that's connected to a sewer.”

 The report finds this new kind of testing to be highly sensitive because it can pick up the presence of the virus when just one person out of 100,000 people in an area is infected.

The CDC is optimistic that this recovery will present a better and more reliable way to detect and therefore curb the spread of the virus in the U.S and across the world. 

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Information from the CNN was used in this report