Publications by authors named "Th Karapantsios"

Article Synopsis
  • * The study focuses on analyzing how different proposed shapes of viral shedding rates from infected individuals influence the estimation of SARS-CoV-2 spread in Thessaloniki during 2022, particularly during the Omicron variant surge.
  • * Findings indicate that the timing of the maximum viral shedding rate relative to infection reporting is critical for estimating infection rates, while factors like the duration of shedding and the specific shape of the distribution are less significant.
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has been engaged to complement medical surveillance and in some cases to also act as an early diagnosis indicator of viral spreading in the community. Most efforts worldwide by the scientific community and commercial companies focus on the formulation of protocols for SARS-CoV-2 analysis in wastewater and approaches addressing the quantitative relationship between WBE and medical surveillance are lacking. In the present study, a mathematical model is developed which uses as input the number of daily positive medical tests together with the highly non-linear shedding rate curve of individuals to estimate the evolution of global virus shedding rate in wastewater along calendar days.

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Detection of SARS-CoV-2 in sewage has been employed by several researchers as an alternative early warning indicator of virus spreading in communities, covering both symptomatic and asymptomatic cases. A factor that can seriously mislead the quantitative measurement of viral copies in sewage is the adsorption of virus fragments onto the highly porous solids suspended in wastewater, making them inaccessible. This depends not only on the available amount of suspended solids, but also on the amount of other dissolved chemicals which may influence the capacity of adsorption.

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