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Manila Water to start surveillance of wastewater for SARS-CoV-2

As part of Manila Water’s COVID-19 response, it is set to begin operations of its first-ever molecular laboratory to capture the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater. The facility is designed to detect and quantify the virus in wastewater using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) machines, which are capable in amplifying small segments of DNA or RNA to an amount large enough to be studied in detail. Data to be generated in this molecular lab can help communities formulate actions in mitigating COVID-19 in its early stages of emergence or re-emergence as wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) can detect the virus even before people show symptoms.

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