Torrent and Paterna already monitor thanks to the City Sentinel System of Hidraqua the arrival of omicron to its wastewater

Hidraqua, by the hand of its Agbar business group, has developed a new SART-COV-2 variants characterization system in wastewater that allows the identification of the new omicron variant.

This novel tool combines advanced molecular diagnostic techniques based on environmental genomics that allow monitoring the evolution of the virus and its variants, as well as the identification of possible new mutations that become new variants.

The incorporation of this new functionality allows to expand the monitoring and prediction solutions already implemented by the group, based on PCR, for the identification of the virus and its variants - which include the analysis of the various strains as they have appeared, from the British strain toearly 2021− and also meets the recommendations of the EU 2021/472, which suggest the application of high performance sequencing methods in wastewater in a biweekly way as a surveillance system and monitoring of the new variants.

The new strain, known as an omicron, was first identified in South Africa, and cases have already been detected in the Spanish State.According to the World Health Organization (WHO), this strain could lead to a "greater risk of reinfection", according to the first preliminary scientific evidence, although the first patients have minor symptoms.

The Covid-19 City Sentinel solution

COVID-19 City Sentinel is the hydraqua surveillance system that, through the group's laboratory network, Labaqua, has developed a wastewater analysis system that allows monitoring the evolution of the virus in wastewater and anticipatingThe appearance of possible new outbreaks among the population.With this solution, public managers have access to all data through a dynamic map of the municipality with a sectorization by areas of influence, which facilitates the detection of the origin of the virus, to help adopt effective measures against new outbreaks.

The Covid-19 City Sentinel solution is the result of a research strategy to develop, in record time, innovative solutions to contribute to the fight against pandemic.In this way, Hidraqua, by the hand of Agbar, makes available to public managers their experience and knowledge in sanitation networks that, combined with the analytical results, implies a valuable source of information so that health responsible can take effective measuresin front of new outbreaks.

Currently, the COVID-19 City Sentinel is implemented in 21 municipalities in which Hidraqua and its participated companies-among them Torrent and Paterna-operate, which allows studying the behavior of wastewater of 1.2 million inhabitants of the inhabitants of theValencian Community.