Establishing wastewater surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 in Southern Saskatchewan

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dc.contributor.advisorHansmeier, Nicole
dc.contributor.advisorChao, Tzu-Chiao
dc.contributor.authorReuter, Sonja Tamara
dc.contributor.committeememberYost, Chistopher
dc.contributor.externalexaminerVan Hamme, Jonathan
dc.date.accessioned2024-10-11T21:03:29Z
dc.date.available2024-10-11T21:03:29Z
dc.date.issued2023-06
dc.descriptionA Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Biology, University of Regina. ix, 95 p.
dc.description.abstractWastewater surveillance has become a crucial part in the monitoring of the COVID-19 pandemic. Infected people shed SARS-CoV-2 in their feces, therefore, virus levels in wastewater reflect the trends in infection numbers in the population that contributes to the wastewater. Wastewater surveillance offers information about the spread of SARS-CoV-2 independent of testing strategies and individual choices and therefore better reflects population health than individual testing. In this study we compared five RNA extraction kits and reagents and different enrichment methods for wastewater surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 RNA and determined that the solids fraction of wastewater was most suitable for RNA extraction using the AllPrep PowerViral DNA/RNA Kit by Qiagen. We also examined the impact of storage on wastewater samples and determined that while short-term storage does not affect the samples significantly, longer storage changes the measured viral levels. We then used our protocol to establish a wastewater surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 viral levels in Regina and nine other locations in Southern Saskatchewan, Canada. We observed that the three waves of COVID-19 during the study time were caused by the variants Alpha, Delta and Omicron and that the SARSCoV- 2 RNA levels in wastewater were a good reflection of the reported active COVID-19 case numbers.
dc.description.authorstatusStudenten
dc.description.peerreviewyesen
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10294/16494
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherFaculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Reginaen
dc.titleEstablishing wastewater surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 in Southern Saskatchewan
dc.typeThesisen
thesis.degree.departmentDepartment of Biology
thesis.degree.disciplineBiology
thesis.degree.grantorUniversity of Reginaen
thesis.degree.levelMaster'sen
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Science (MSc)
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