SARS-CoV-2 surveillance in untreated wastewater: detection of viral RNA in a low-resource community in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Objective: To measure SARS-CoV-2 RNA in sewage in a low-resource community in order to determine if it can be considered as an estimator of changes in the prevalence of COVID-19 in the population.

Methods: In this descriptive observational study we collected samples of surface waters contaminated with sewage and optimized a method of purification of viral RNA using PEG concentration. We determined the amount of genetic material by quantitative real-time PCR using the CDC method for SARS-CoV-2 detection.