Coronavirus found in wastewater of 6 cities

Coronavirus has been detected this month in the wastewater of six cities of the country, namely Helsinki, Turku, Espoo, Tampere, Rauma, and Vaasa, said the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) in a press release on Thursday.

In its latest weekly monitoring conducted on 16–17 August, the THL detected the virus in samples collected from the wastewater treatment plants at Viikinmäki in Helsinki, Kakolanmäki in Turku, and Suomenoja in Espoo.

In its earlier weekly monitoring conducted on 9–10 August, the THL found coronavirus in samples collected from the wastewater treatment plant at Viinkanlahti in Tampere, as well as in Helsinki and Turku.

In addition, individual samples collected from Rauma, and Vaasa this month also contained coronavirus.

However, wastewater samples collected from Tampere, Kuopio, and Oulu this week contained no coronavirus.

The first week of August involved carrying out monthly monitoring covering 28 different wastewater treatment plants on 2–3 August. At that time coronavirus was detected in Espoo, Rauma, and Vaasa, in addition to Helsinki and Turku.

In July, when the COVID-19 outbreak had calmed down, there were only sporadic findings of the virus at most of the treatment plants or the findings fell below the detection limit of the analysis method used. In July, coronavirus was particularly found in the wastewater collected from Turku. Coronavirus genome was also found in wastewater samples collected from Helsinki and Espoo.

In June, the prevalence of coronavirus was slightly more extensive than in July. Of the weekly sampling sites, coronavirus was found in samples from the wastewater treatment plants in Helsinki and Turku. Of the samples collected at the monthly monitoring sites, coronavirus was found in the wastewater of Espoo, Lappeenranta, and Vihti.

“Wastewater research clearly shows that coronavirus can be detected in the same locations where coronavirus infections have also been diagnosed through individual testing”, said THL Senior Researcher Tarja Pitkänen.