Bengaluru to test sewage for early identification of Covid-19 clusters

The testing is said to help identify potential clusters

The Karnataka government will start testing sewage water to assess the prevalence of Covid-19 with a city-wide surveillance system where traces of coronavirus will help identify potential clusters.

Additional Chief Secretary of the Urban Development Department Rakesh Singh said the state government plans to begin testing across 45 wards in Bangalore. “The system will cover over 75% of Bengaluru’s 90 lakh population by generating over 90 data points per week signalling the emerging Covid-19 clusters or signalling a Covid-19 cluster’s exit from an area. We are happy to launch this model in Bangalore, first in India,” he said.

The department said the project was launched in association with PCMH Restore Health and Wellness, part of CovidActionCollab (CAC). Supported by United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Skoll Foundation, the CAC is an India-wide collaboration of 300 organisations that is helping the state government to roll out the new system.

Rakesh Singh said scientists have found that wastewater testing can serve as a cost-effective early warning system to assess the increase in Covid-19 cases before the number of official cases goes up. Covid-19 response and give policymakers the information they need to better allocate limited pandemic resources," he said.