N.B. company helps study wastewater for COVID-19, mpox at Toronto Pearson airport

A New Brunswick-based company is leading a wastewater study for subvariants of COVID-19 and mpox for the Greater Toronto Airport Authority.

LuminUltra, located in Fredericton, has signed on to collect samples of stool to determine how much of the COVID-19 and mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, viruses are in the wastewater of airplanes at Canada’s largest airport.

“When human beings, or really any animal, gets infected with any kind of infectious disease, one of the modes that we have of ridding ourselves of that pathogen is through poop,” said Patrick Whalen, LuminUltra’s CEO and chairman.

Whalen said airports are the biggest entry point into most countries and they can be a critical location to test for how much presence a virus has in a country, as well as what might be entering.

All areas of the Toronto Pearson airport are included, even the wastewater from airplanes. The company began testing in October 2022.

“This is a situation where an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and part of that prevention strategy is continuing to monitor for the threats that we know about and, more importantly, the ones that we don’t,” he said.

The science behind it

The process for measuring the viral load in wastewater is based on the detection of RNA, which acts as a messenger in the body, carrying instructions from the DNA of a virus.

A sample, in this case, stool, is combined with a lysis buffer and magnetic beads. After that, a magnet is applied to concentrate viral RNA on the beads. It is then washed and the RNA is eluted for analysis.

In some viruses, RNA carries the genetic information. The samples follow the same PCR technology as a clinical test, according to Whalen.

“We were the first commercial laboratory that was offering the testing of sewage samples for COVID-19 all the way back in February 2020,” Whalen said. “In general, you can get a one- to two-week early warning of there being some sort of a new pathogen emerging in the community before people start showing up at (the) doctors.”

In New Brunswick, Public Health is testing wastewater. Initially, it was only in Moncton and Natoaganeg First Nation.

Adam Bowie, a spokesperson for the Department of Health, said the program has expanded to Fredericton and will soon be done in Bathurst and Saint John.

“Studies have shown that a significant proportion of people with active COVID-19 infections shed the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) in their stool – sometimes even before their symptoms start,” he said in the statement.

“Early warning systems, such as wastewater surveillance, can detect small changes in the population and act as a signal. Data from wastewater surveillance testing are most useful when used with other data and are meant to complement existing COVID-19 surveillance systems.”

Bowie did not address whether the province is considering wastewater testing at airports in the province.

Helpful for decision making

The Greater Toronto Airport Authority said wastewater testing is critical to help it make evidence-based business decisions and policy. Dwayne MacIntosh, the GTAA’s director of corporate safety and security at Pearson, said it can work to identify variants of concern coming into Canada.

It also said PCR testing is invasive and can be difficult based on the number of passengers and employees that work and travel through the Toronto Pearson airport.

While the data collected is being handled by the GTAA, MacIntosh said it is open to sharing the results with the Public Health Agency of Canada.

“But certainly we would want to make sure that our government partners understand the data as well. It doesn’t do us any good to work independent of the regulators and the decision-makers,” he said in an interview Monday.

MacIntosh said it is too soon to say whether the project will continue past March, but said if it shows success and isn’t duplicating data already available, they may continue it.