Monkeypox: Bengaluru begins tracking its sewage for virus

Sewage Treatment Plant (Supplied)

Dr KV Thrilok Chandra, Special Commissioner (Health), Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), confirmed that the Bengaluru municipal body has already started to track the sewage samples for Monkeypox virus in almost 46 locations and said the reports may be out in 10 days.

Monkeypox added to Bengaluru list

Chandra told South First, “We have successfully been doing it for many infectious diseases and mainly for Covid. Now we have added Monkeypox also to the list and we are tracking the samples in Bengaluru. However, we have not found anything so far.”

Sewage water collected for testing (Supplied)

Speaking on the importance of wastewater surveillance, Dr Rakesh Mishra, former director of the CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad, and current director at the Tata Institute for Genetics and Society (TIGS) in Bengaluru, said infected people shed the virus in their feces even before they begin showing the symptoms.

This can be an early indicator of the presence of the virus. However, when the number of cases is very few, it may be difficult to find the strain in wastewater.

‘All states must track sewage for Monkeypox’

Mishra, however, added that it has been many years since such a pox virus has been detected in the country and said it is necessary to monitor it through sewage surveillance. He added that all states must monitor the sewage samples.

Wastewater sample collected for further testing (Supplied)

“Monitoring sewage water for any infectious disease has been the best way to track a new emergence. We have done it successfully for Covid and we are setting up surveillance for Monkeypox in Bengaluru now. We will soon follow it in other cities too,” Mishra noted.

Dr T S Selva Vinayagam, Director of Public Health in the Tamil Nadu government, told South First, “In TN as of now, they are not doing sewage surveillance, but may do so in future.”

Covid lessons for Monkeypox

Monkeypox was recently declared a global health emergency on 23 July by the WHO, while warning against stigma and discrimination. Experts note that since we are in the early days of the outbreak, there is not much information available about the Monkeypox virus that is currently being tracked by Bengaluru in its wastewater.

“Covid has taught us lessons on different ways of tracking the spread of the virus. With Monkeypox, surveillance still needs to pick up,” Dr US Vishal Rao, Member of Genome Sequencing Committee, and Dean, Head and Neck Oncology at HCG Hospitals, told South First.

“Since the genetic sequence of this virus is now known, we should now look for the pathogen excreted in feces and urine. Sometimes when an infected person takes a shower, the virus, being washed from the skin surface, can end up in wastewater,” Rao added.