Researchers find coronavirus in water samples from Sabarmati river, experts call it alarming

In an alarming finding, researchers of IIT Gandhinagar and Jawaharlal Nehru University's School of Environment Science have found traces of novel coronavirus in water samples taken from the Sabarmati river in Ahmedabad. The virus was found in samples taken from the city's Kankria and Chandola lakes as well.

Professor Manish Kumar of the Earth Sciences department in IIT, Gandhinagar, said that the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in lakes and rivers could lead to a dangerous state of affairs.

The team had collected the water samples once every week between September 3 and December 29, 2019. Over 694 samples were collected from the Sabarmati river, 549 were taken from Chandola lake, and 402 from Kankria lake.

According to their research, they said the virus could live in natural waters for too long. The development comes days after bodies of COVID-infected patients were found floating in the rivers in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. 

Notably, Karnataka became the first state in the country to introduce a city sewage surveillance system in Bengaluru to identify potential COVID-19 clusters in water.

In 2020, similar research was conducted in Gujarat. Researchers from the IIT-Gandhinagar, Gujarat Biotechnology Research Centre (GBRC), and Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) carried out sampling on May 8 and 27, 2020 from Old Pirana Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP) at Ahmedabad.

The Waste Water Treatment Plant receives 106 million litres per day of liquid waste or sewage from Civil Hospital treating COVID-19 patients.

Viral RNAs were isolated from sewage samples and RT-PCR analysis of viral RNA was done for the presence of SARS-CoV-2. The results showed that the WWTP samples on both May 8 and May 27 were positive with SARS-CoV-2 genes.

Now the researchers want similar tests to be conducted across the country to know whether the virus is found in water bodies elsewhere.