Explained: What We Know About COVID Transmission Through Faeces

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published Published on Jul 7, 2021   modified Modified on Jul 8, 2021

-IndiaSpend.com

Knowing whether Covid-19 can be transmitted through faeces or through virus-laden particles released via sewage is important for India where many still defecate in the open and most sewage is released untreated.

Delhi: Faeces of Covid-19 patients contain the virus, sometimes even days after the person tests negative on a Covid-19 swab test. But researchers have been unable to confirm whether the virus could transmit through faeces. We look at the research and explain what this means for sanitation, especially in India where 72% of sewage is left untreated and 72,368 million liters of sewage is generated per day.

What the research says

Researchers, supported by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the National Institute of Virology, tracked a family of four in Pune, Maharashtra, after they tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus on an RT-PCR test, according to a preprint of the study from June 2021.

The first person to test positive, known as the 'index case', was a 37-year-old healthcare worker who worked in the Covid-19 ward of a hospital. Researchers say he spread the infection to his family: his wife, 34, and their two children, aged 8 years and 6 years, who tested positive for Covid-19 a few days after him. The health worker had serious symptoms that lasted the longest, his wife had moderate symptoms, while the children had very mild symptoms.

Researchers tested their stools after their admission to hospital and then on days 14, 21, 32, 40, 48 and 55 from the onset of symptoms, and found the presence of SARS-CoV-2 until at least day 21 in stool samples, even for the children who had mild symptoms. They were excreting the virus even after they had tested negative on pharyngeal swabs and this "suggested the possibility of SARS-CoV-2 transmission via the faecal-oral route", which means that the disease could spread via pathogens in faecal matter of one person that are ingested by another person, the researchers said. Urine samples, collected on admission and 14 days later, were negative throughout but this could mean that "improved methods of testing of urine samples are warranted", the researchers wrote.

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IndiaSpend.com, 7 July, 2021, https://www.indiaspend.com/explainers/covid-transmission-through-faeces-759884


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