Coronavirus has created havoc worldwide for the last one and a half years. It has disrupted life and forced people to live in restrictions and lockdowns. Research and tests continue to provide new information about the deadly virus. Earlier, news reports of the detection of the Sars-CoV-2 virus in wastewater samples from many parts of the country came to light. Now, for the first time coronavirus has been detected in natural water sources as well.
The presence of coronavirus has been detected in the Sabarmati river in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Scientists are surprised that the coronavirus has been detected in all the samples taken from the river. Along with the Sabarmati river in Ahmedabad the virus has also been confirmed in samples taken from other water sources including Kankaria and Chandola lakes in Ahmedabad.
Eight institutions of the country, including IIT Gandhi Nagar, have done research to confirm the presence of coronavirus in natural water sources. Students from the School of Environmental Sciences, JNU, Delhi are also involved in this research.
Scientists also examined samples from natural water sources in Assam’s Guwahati. The research revealed that the coronavirus was present in the samples taken from the Bharu river of Assam.
Manish Kumar from the Department of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Gandhinagar, said that till now only the survival of the coronavirus was confirmed in the sewage line.
“Our team took a sample of river water and examined it. Ahmedabad has the highest number of wastewater treatment plants and Guwahati does not have a single plant. When our team examined the water samples from the river at both places, coronavirus was confirmed in it,” he said.
Kumar said that his team took samples of rivers every week from September 3 to December 29, 2020. 694 samples were taken from Sabarmati river, 549 from Kankaria lake and 402 from Chandola lake. In research, coronavirus has been confirmed in all samples. In this research it has been found that the virus can survive even in the clean water of the river, he said.
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