This project formed the Mekong node of the Collaboration on Sewage Surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 “ColoSSoS” project after Water Research Australia and the Australian Water Association identified that technology transfer within Australia’s broader region was a logical extension of the local project.

This project transferred leading Australian innovation in the environmental surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 to support the Governments of five countries in the Mekong River Delta (including Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand) to prepare, respond and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. It established partnerships between Australia and these five countries and transferred SARS-CoV-2 environmental surveillance methods established in Australia by WaterRA and partners. The transfer of these methods has supported each Government’s efforts to monitor SARS-CoV-2 prevalence in water environments (primarily sewage and stormwater), to inform COVID-19 control strategies of the Governments and add to their COVID-19 resilience toolbox. Through developing the set-up for potential cost-effective earlier warning detection systems for COVID-19 outbreaks in each country, the project has supported the long-term strengthening of health security, systems, stability, social cohesion and economic recovery across the Mekong region.

The Collaboration on Sewage Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 (ColoSSoS) project combined the expertise of more than 50 Australian organisations in R&D activities that have enabled health departments across the country to integrate quantitative measurements of SARS-CoV-2 virus detected in sewage with human clinical PCR test data for COVID-19. This subproject trialled a series of molecular tests to identify the best laboratory protocols for the reliable retrieval of SARS-CoV-2 virus from sewage samples, extraction of the viral RNA and the amplification of viral sequences that can distinguish between SARS-CoV-2 and other closely related types of viruses. Laboratory test control and validation methods were also established. These methods have been implemented in the Victorian state wastewater monitoring programme and are also the foundation for the ongoing development of genome sequencing methods which will be applied to detect and identify emerging variants in the future.

Wastewater, including sewage, must be treated to remove chemical pollutants prior to its release into the environment. Sunlight can degrade polluting contaminants when wastewater is held in large, shallow lagoons. This research will examine the effectiveness of sunlight for reducing pollutants, and how sunlight interacts with substances in water to generate ‘photochemically produced reactive intermediates’, which cause indirect degradation of contaminants. The rate at which light-derived ‘reactive intermediates’ damage selected contaminants, and information about the molecular structure of the contaminants, will be combined to build a conceptual model that can be used to predict future photolysis and contaminant removal in wastewater lagoons.