CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The poop test at UNC-Charlotte is showing results.
The school is using a wastewater testing program to find early signs of coronavirus in wastewater from student housing.
Within a few days of students' return to dorms, the testing program identified the virus at one dorm. Those students are now all getting tested by the school. They're allowed to leave the dorm for medical appointments and to get food, but must stay inside until they're cleared through a negative test.
Since July 1, a total of 215 members of the UNC-Charlotte community have tested positive for the coronavirus, 180 them students.
WRAL Investigates highlighted the program earlier this year while it was still in the testing phase.
"This might be a way to actually get ahead of when we can diagnose cases," said researcher Dr. Cynthia Gibas of UNC-Charlotte. She is leading an effort to test on-campus wastewater to find coronavirus before it spreads. "You'll see virus that has been shed by people who don't know they're sick yet," explains Gibas.
Her team will collect wastewater from 17 dorms and three Greek houses several times a week. They'll then test the samples for signs of Covid and act if there's a positive. According to Gibas, "If we were to find a signal in a dorm building, we could notify the students that were there and say, 'Hey, you should come in and get tested.'"
Charlotte is among about a dozen schools taking the fight to Covid through wastewater and so far, there have been positive results.
"What we really need to find out is who are the people that are asymptomatic and positive. This use of wastewater epidemiology is going to be really important," says Dr. Robert Robbins, the president of the University of Arizona. Last month, water showed signs of Covid at a dorm there. The school acted quickly and likely stopped an outbreak, says Robbins.
"We went over, we tested all the students and staff that work there at Likins, and we found two positive cases which we moved over to isolation. So, we think this is going to be a very valuable to help us get out in front," he said.
The testing can even detect the concentration of the novel coronavirus.
Scientists like Gibas hope their work will eventually give health experts even answers.
She is asking, "When we see this much signal, what does that mean, how many people might we be looking for?"
But for now, just finding the virus may keep UNC-Charlotte open, unlike other state schools.
"We really just really want to get back to normal operation, or as close to that as we can while this is going on, and this might be one way we can do that," explains Gibas.
The school paid for the collection and testing supplies with money from the CARES Act. There's hope to expand the testing program to popular off-campus student housing complexes if the school can find the money.
