Indoor dust as a matrix for surveillance of COVID-19 outbreaks

Ongoing disease surveillance is a critical tool to mitigate viral outbreaks, especially during a pandemic. Environmental monitoring has significant promise even following widespread vaccination among high-risk populations. The goal of this work is to demonstrate molecular SARS-CoV-2 monitoring in bulk floor dust and related samples as a proof-of-concept of a non-invasive environmental surveillance methodology for COVID-19 and potentially other viral diseases. Surface swab, passive sampler, and bulk floor dust samples were collected from rooms of individuals infected with COVID-19, and SARS-CoV-2 was measured with quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) and two digital PCR (dPCR) methods. Bulk dust samples had geometric mean concentration of 159 copies/mg-dust and ranged from non-detects to 23,049 copies/mg-dust detected using ddPCR. An average of 88% of bulk dust samples were positive for the virus among detection methods compared to 55% of surface swabs ...持续的疾病监测是遏制病毒暴发的关键手段，尤其在大流行期间。即便在高危人群完成广泛疫苗接种后，环境监测仍具备显著的应用潜力。本研究旨在通过对地面积尘及相关样本开展严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）分子监测，验证其作为COVID-19乃至其他病毒性疾病非侵入性环境监测方法的概念可行性。 研究人员从新冠病毒感染者所在房间采集了表面拭子、被动采样器样本及地面积尘样本，采用定量逆转录聚合酶链反应（quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, RT-qPCR）与两种数字聚合酶链反应（digital PCR, dPCR）方法对SARS-CoV-2进行检测。微滴式数字聚合酶链反应（droplet digital PCR, ddPCR）检测结果显示，地面积尘样本的病毒几何平均浓度为159拷贝/毫克灰尘，检出范围从未检出至23049拷贝/毫克灰尘。不同检测方法下，平均88%的地面积尘样本呈病毒阳性，而表面拭子的阳性率仅为55%……