IIT Gandhinagar joins global study on coronavirus human transmission

Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar has joined an international study to do research on whether coronavirus can survive in human waste or not.

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar has collaborated with global premier universities and research institutes to conduct research on whether coronavirus can survive in human waste.

A group of scientists at IIT Gandhinagar has submitted their views to Environmental Science and Technology, a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Chemical Society.

The paper has emphasized the need to do a survey on wastewater, to know if the coronavirus is present in it or not. The paper stated that it is important as more than 22 lakh people across the world have been affected by COVID-19, the infection it causes, leading to 1.5 lakh deaths.

 Manish Kumar, a collaborator who teaches at the department of earth sciences, IIT Gandhinagar, said this study will help in monitoring the community transmission of coronavirus.

“The critical point here is that while it takes three to 14 days for an individual to exhibit symptoms, its occurrence in wastewater can be seen early and therefore it can be used as a warning sign, especially in densely-populated clusters,” Kumar said.

 As per the reports, the international consortium is planning to gauge the scale of infection in a population by collecting and examining the influent samples from municipal wastewater treatment plants in several countries including in India.

“The main motive of our study is to understand the transmission mechanism of the novel coronavirus from an infected person to the sewage and from sewage to humans again,” he said.

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