Genomic surveillance reveals early detection and transition of delta to omicron lineages of SARS-CoV-2 variants in wastewater treatment plants of Pune, India

The COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized the urgency for rapid public health surveillance methods to detect and monitor the transmission of infectious diseases. The wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has emerged as a promising tool for proactive analysis and quantification of infectious pathogens within a population before clinical cases emerge. In the present study, we aimed to assess the trend and dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 variants using a longitudinal approach. Our objective included early detection and monitoring of these variants to enhance our understanding of their prevalence and potential impact. To achieve our goals, we conducted real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) and Illumina sequencing on 442 wastewater (WW) samples collected from 10 sewage treatment plants (STPs) in Pune city, India, spanning from November 2021 to April 2022. Our comprehensive analysis identified 426 distinct lineages representing 17 highly transmissible variants of SARS-CoV-2. Notably, fragments of Omicron variant were detected in WW samples prior to its first clinical detection in Botswana. Furthermore, we observed highly contagious sub-lineages of the Omicron variant, including BA.1 (~28%), BA.1.X (1.0-72%), BA.2 (1.0-18%), BA.2.X (1.0-97.4%) BA.2.12 (0.8-0.25%), BA.2.38 (0.8-1.0%), BA.2.75 (0.01-0.02%), BA.3 (0.09-6.3%), BA.4 (0.24-0.29%), and XBB (0.01-21.83%), with varying prevalence rates. Overall, the present study demonstrated the practicality of WBE in the early detection of SARS-CoV-2 variants, which could help track future outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2. Such approaches could be implicated in monitoring infectious agents before they appear in clinical cases.