Real-time COVID-19 detection in wastewater from long-term care homes

对于加拿大各地的社区来说，对清洁水的需求是持续的。随着人们对有机污染物进入供水系统的日益关注，饮用水和包括废水在内的水系统的处理及其对健康的影响已经成为一种需要。最重要的是，由于新冠肺炎大流行，对快速、高精度和低成本的废水传感器的需求非常普遍。 目前，加拿大圭尔夫大学的ManTech正在与滑铁卢大学的纳米和微系统实验室合作，致力于开发感染暴发预测技术。长期疗养院每天通过测试废水收集系统中收集的黑水进行筛选。这项技术对疾病本身并不特异，只是对已建立的基线的改变。ManTech和NMSL合作的目标是开发一种关键的光纳机电系统(P-NEMS)技术，以制造用于当前和未来疾病预测和检测的智能混合水传感器。这项技术将对人类健康研究工作产生不可估量的影响，以遏制新冠肺炎和未来可能的大流行传播，并使安大略省和加拿大远远领先于世界各地的类似努力。拟议的培训将教育和培训实习生，使其成为未来的领先科学家和技术专家，以解决加拿大基础设施(IC)所指出的“在互联技术和智能传感器方面的知识、专业知识和培训方面的差距”。

The need for clean water is constant for communities across Canada. With growing concerns related to organic pollutants entering the water supply, the treatment of drinking water and water systems including wastewater, and their health effects a need has been sown. On top of this, the requirement for rapid, high accuracy and low cost wastewater sensors is prevalent due to the COVID-19 pandemic now. Currently MANTECH of Guelph-Canada is working to develop an infection outbreak prediction technology in collaboration with the Nano and Micro System Lab of the University of Waterloo. The long term nursing homes are screened by testing the black water from these homes discharge collected in a wastewater collection system one or two times each day. This technology is non-specific to the disease itself, simply a change in the established baseline. The goal of the partnership between MANTECH and NMSL is to develop a critical photo-nano-electro-mechanical-systems (P-NEMS) technology to manufacture smart hybrid water sensors for current and future disease prediction and detection. This technology will have an invaluable impact on human health research efforts to contain the COVID-19 and possible future pandemic spread, and put Ontario and Canada far ahead of similar efforts worldwide. The proposed training will educate and train interns as tomorrow's leading scientists and technologists addressing the "gap in knowledge, expertise and training in connected technologies and smart sensors", indicated by the Infrastructure Canada (IC).