Estimating actual SARS-CoV-2 infections from secondary data.

Eminent in pandemic management is accurate information on infection dynamics to plan for timely installation of control measures and vaccination campaigns. Despite huge efforts in diagnostic testing of individuals, the underestimation of the actual number of SARS-CoV-2 infections remains significant due to the large number of undocumented cases. In this paper we demonstrate and compare three methods to estimate the dynamics of true infections based on secondary data i.

Decentralised system for demand-oriented collection of food waste - Assessment of biomethane potential, pathogen development and microbial community structure.

Enormous amounts of food waste (FW) are produced worldwide, requiring efficient disposal strategies, both economically and ecologically. Anaerobic digestion to produce biomethane is among the most promising strategies, but requires proper solutions for storage and delivery of the waste material. Here, a decentralized system for demand-oriented FW storage and its practical usability was assessed.

Expanding the Pathogen Panel in Wastewater Epidemiology to Influenza and Norovirus.

Since the start of the 2019 pandemic, wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has proven to be a valuable tool for monitoring the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2. With methods and infrastructure being settled, it is time to expand the potential of this tool to a wider range of pathogens. We used over 500 archived RNA extracts from a WBE program for SARS-CoV-2 surveillance to monitor wastewater from 11 treatment plants for the presence of influenza and norovirus twice a week during the winter season of 2021/2022.

Prediction of hospitalisations based on wastewater-based SARS-CoV-2 epidemiology.

Wastewater-based epidemiology is widely applied in Austria since April 2020 to monitor the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. With a steadily increasing number of monitored wastewater facilities, 123 plants covering roughly 70 % of the 9 million population were monitored as of August 2022. In this study, the SARS-CoV-2 viral concentrations in raw sewage were analysed to infer short-term hospitalisation occupancy.