experimental protocol for detecting sars-cov-2 in screenings and grit samples of wastewater treatment plants

Introduction: although various liquid, solid, and gaseous streams of wastewater treatment plants (wwtps) have been analyzed in many studies for the presence of sars-cov-2 rna, no study was found to sample and detect sars-cov-2 rna in screenings and grit samples separated from primary treatment units of wwtp. hence, this study aims to provide an experimental protocol for sampling and extracting sars-cov-2 rna from screenings and grits separated from wwtps. materials and methods: first, sampling was conducted to extract sars-cov-2 rna from screenings and grit samples. after sample processing and viral rna extraction, sars-cov-2 rna detection was performed by one-step reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (rt-qpcr). results: based on the results, sars-cov-2 rna was successfully extracted from screenings and grit samples of the studied wwtp with concentrations of (1.54 –3.9 × 10^4) and (0.8 – 2.3 × 10^4) genomic copies/l, respectively. conclusion: considering the successfully isolation and detection of sars-cov-2 viral rna in solid phase samples of wwtp, this method can be applied for extracting sars-cov-2 rna and maybe other viruses from the screenings and grit samples of wwtps in related studies.