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  • TECHNOLOGY FEATURE

How waste water is helping South Africa fight COVID-19

Detecting the coronavirus in samples from treatment plants could give early warning of outbreaks and new variants.
  1. Heather Richardson

    1. Heather Richardson is a science writer based in Cape Town, South Africa.

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Three workers in PPE collect water samples from a South African water treatment facility, to be tested for traces o SARS-CoV-2

A team from the South African Medical Research Association samples the water at a sewage-treatment facility in Tshwane. Credit: Delwyn Verasamy/Mail & Guardian

Monday is sample-collection day in Cape Town, South Africa, and Aqeelah Benjamin is halfway through her shift. At the Green Point wastewater-treatment plant, under the Atlantic coast promenade, she fills a 500-millilitre bottle from a tap of untreated water. She wipes the bottle’s exterior, cleans it with a spritz of ethanol and stores it on ice.

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Nature 593, 616-617 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01399-9

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