Covid, Iss: “In Delta variant sewers with many mutations like Plus”

In wastewater there is “the almost exclusive presence on the national territory of the Delta variant of the Sars-CoV-2 virus, associated with a great genetic variability with the presence of many mutations including those of the so-called Delta Plus”. This is what emerges from the second flash survey of the Higher Institute of Health (Iss) which analyzed the samples taken from wastewater in Italy. “All the positive samples characterized were Delta in accordance with what reported by the epidemiological clinical surveillance relating to the same sampling period”, adds the ISS. The study, carried out by the working group coordinated by Giuseppina La Rosa, Department of Environment and Health, and by Elisabetta Suffredini of the Department of Food Safety, Nutrition and Veterinary Public Health of the ISS, analyzed 92 samples collected in 16 regions and autonomous provinces in the period 4-8 October 2021. “60% of the samples confirmed positivity by genome of Sars-Cov-2 and 23 samples were characterized by sequencing the coding region for the spike protein. The flash survey will be repeated on a monthly basis”, highlights the report of the ISS. “The prospects for this activity are very promising – explains Marco Martuzzi, director of the ISS Environment and Health Department – the surveillance of Sars-Cov-2 in urban wastewater is a complementary tool to microbiological and epidemiological surveillance for the study of epidemic trends. , but also to explore the genetic variability of the virus “.