ANALYSIS: We tested plane toilets to detect COVID among travellers – here’s what we found
Most samples from both the planes and the terminals contained high concentrations of SARS-CoV-2, suggesting there were many people unwittingly bringing COVID back to the UK.last year, the UK government lifted the requirement for unvaccinated passengers to take a pre-departure test and another on day two after arriving. We studied sewage samples from both before and after these restrictions ended, and found high concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 regardless of when the samples were taken.
This could point to limitations in screening procedures, like pre-departure tests. That said, by March most of the UK populationHowever, this is still worth noting as many countries, including the UK, reinstatedWe previously carried out wastewater monitoring on sewage collectedfor people arriving in the UK from red-list countries between March and July 2021.
Similar to our latest research on airport surveillance, this work confirmed that many passengers entering the UK were carrying SARS-CoV-2. In this case, all passengers arriving would have had to take a pre-departure test. These cases may not have been caught because the infection was in its early stages when they were first tested, because the testing failed or because they contracted COVID while in transit. But this clearly shows the difficulties associated with trying to prevent infectious diseases crossing international borders.Wastewater testing to monitor air travel passengers does have some drawbacks. For example, not every passenger uses the toilet on the plane.
This data combined with the typical concentration of SARS-CoV-2 in faeces suggest that wastewater monitoring in this context is likely to capture about 8 to 14 per cent of all COVID cases on an aircraft. This is still a valuable addition to existing testing methods.
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