FAYETTEVILLE -- Wastewater sampling to test for covid-19 began last month in Benton and Washington counties, said Wen Zhang, the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville professor leading the project.
The research aims to better understand how widely spread the new coronavirus is within a given population by gathering data from plants that treat the community's wastewater.
Zhang said in an email the plan is to sample plants weekly in "highly affected" counties for three weeks to establish baseline data for those communities. Over the next few weeks, the plan is to also test samples from Sebastian County to gather information about the Fort Smith community, she said.
Researchers "will pick a few sites for long-term monitoring," Zhang said. But she added that "we simply can't afford to do this for every plant in Arkansas."
No data has yet been made public, but Zhang said communication is ongoing with state health authorities.
[CORONAVIRUS: Click here for our complete coverage » arkansasonline.com/coronavirus]
"We've been communicating with plants immediately after we get the results. We plan to submit reports to the State that could be made public. In addition, we will publish in scientific journals that are accessible to the public," said Zhang, who leads an environmental engineering research laboratory at UA.
The research team will follow recommendations from the state about whether to make results public, Zhang said. A state Health Department spokeswoman referred questions about the project to Zhang.
A $39,600 allocation to support Zhang's work was approved June 10 by the state's steering committee for funding received through the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.
"Our goal is to sample all over Arkansas where the case numbers are relatively higher (such as more than 1000 confirmed cases)," Zhang said.
Sampling of wastewater allows scientists to check for RNA from the virus that causes covid-19, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which earlier in the year stated on its website that it was "ramping up" efforts to build partnerships through what's known as the National Wastewater Surveillance System.
The CDC describes on its website how the sampling can supplement other community health data.
For example, the wastewater results are independent of whether people are getting tests or if enough tests are available. The type of testing also can identify both symptomatic and asymptomatic infections, according to the CDC.
"CDC is actually establishing a nationwide wastewater surveillance network. Individual researchers can submit their wastewater result to the national database for interpretation and comparison purposes," Zhang said. "However, it requires funding to do so. We don't currently have the capability to do routine testing on wastewater all over Arkansas yet."