KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A microbiology technology company in Drexel, Missouri, is helping fight the coronavirus pandemic across the country.
CEO David Alburty said InnovaPrep's patented Concentrating Pipette is being used to detect COVID-19 in wastewater.
"It's kind of a community-based swab," Alburty said.
Alburty said it's exciting to watch the technology flying off the shelves. The company developed the equipment in 2007. It's a quick and easy way to detect COVID-19 hotspots in communities.
"It's a super easy, automated, one-button kind of instrument about the size of a coffee maker," Alburty said.
Alburty said wastewater has been used for years to detect for diseases such as polio. Currently, the Concentrating Pipette is being used on several college campuses, including the University of Arizona and Colorado State University, to detect COVID-19 in dormitories.
"COVID is the big impetus of the universities. They need to stay open, they need to find infected people so they can swab them, know who is infected and who's not and allow the campus to be open to the greatest extent possible," Alburty said.
The technology recently detected significantly high levels of COVID-19 in two dorms at CSU, where about 900 students were quarantined until they could be tested.
In Kansas, researchers at the University of Kansas spent the last 10 weeks monitoring for COVID-19 in wastewater treatment plants in Lawrence.
Belinda Sturm, professor of civil, environmental and architectural engineering at KU, said researchers have found strong correlations between high levels of COVID-19 in wastewater and increases in positive cases in the community.
"Having enough data now for a long enough time, we're able to gain confidence that this is a meaningful measurement of community prevalence," Sturm said.
Sturm said researchers are expanding testing throughout the entire state.
No matter the method, both Sturm and Alburty say using wastewater gives community leaders the real-time data they need to make quick decisions.
"Being able to find people that are infectious and stop that from spreading it further means we're saving people's lives," Alburty said.
Alburty said the technology will also prove beneficial for communities when a vaccine is developed.
"There will be areas that are more infectious than others, and the vaccine can be applied there first to try to cool hotspots," Alburty said.
