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Elizabeth Cheung

A technology developed by Hong Kong that uses sewage monitoring to detect Covid-19 could be deployed to track other diseases such as flu and dengue fever, researchers have found, with the method already adopted by about 100 cities in mainland China.
Researchers from the University of Hong Kong (HKU), who developed the technology during the coronavirus pandemic, said sewage contained far more significant information than the mere flow of waste.
“Sewage is not only a flow of waste, but also flow of water, flow of resources, flow of energy and flow of information,” Professor Zhang Tong from the university’s department of civil engineering said in an interview last Tuesday.
“Sewage surveillance could be a very important element of a smart city.”
The studies looking into the use of sewage for Covid-19 detection began as a government-commissioned project, backed by the Health Bureau’s Health and Medical Research Fund.
With the fund, the team managed to set up 26 sewage surveillance points in Hong Kong in late 2020.
The city became the world’s first location to identify Covid-19 cases through sewage testing in a building block that had not reported any infections before.
While the use of sewage surveillance has now been incorporated into a regular tool for monitoring Covid-19 trends in Hong Kong, with a weekly sewage test at 12 treatment facilities, Zhang said the impact of the technology had gone beyond the city’s border and into the mainland.
He said about 100 cities on the mainland, including Shenzhen, had also adopted sewage testing for Covid-19 surveillance based on Hong Kong’s experience.
Zhang said his team was also looking to detect dengue fever through sewage tracking, in collaboration with health authorities on the mainland, in projects not covered by the Hong Kong government’s fund.
The technology would be useful for Hainan province, as well as some other parts of Guangdong province, where dengue fever was more prevalent, Zhang said. Dengue tracking was a lesser issue for Hong Kong as the city had relatively fewer cases.
For local applications, the city was looking into using sewage testing to monitor the transmission trends of flu and respiratory syncytial virus, which could be detected in waste water through urine or faeces dispelled in it, Zhang said.

The Hong Kong government has injected more than HK$4 billion (US$514 million) since the fund was established in 2011, of which HK$3.5 billion had been used to subsidise over 2,000 research projects.
A biennial symposium was held on Tuesday for researchers supported by the fund to share the findings of their studies.
In an interview a week before the symposium, Undersecretary for Health Libby Lee Ha-yun said the fund valued studies which could be turned into practical applications.
Looking ahead, she said the fund would also subsidise more research into molecules that showed promise for drug or vaccine development and which had the prospect of entering clinical trials, as part of Hong Kong’s plan to become a medical innovation hub.
Other funded projects included one that had devised a service model for taking care of elderly patients suffering from hip fractures.
The studies, led by Professor Frankie Leung Ka-li from HKU’s department of orthopaedics and traumatology, found that engaging specialists from both orthopaedics and geriatrics could deliver better recovery progress for patients.
Compared with patients whose care was led only by orthopaedic specialists, those who were also treated by experts in geriatric care had their hospital stay reduced from eight days to seven days. Their mortality rate within a year of the injury was also reduced from 13.9 per cent to 10.6 per cent.
Since the service model was first tested at Queen Mary Hospital in Pok Fu Lam in late 2018, other public hospitals had now also adopted the same approach, and over 10,000 elderly hip fracture patients had benefited from HKU’s findings.
Professor Winnie Mak Wing-sze from the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s department of psychology had also developed multiple digital apps for addressing mental health needs, with support from the fund since 2011.
The apps involved practice of mindfulness techniques and cognitive behavioural therapy to improve users’ mental health, she said.
With experience from previous studies supported by the fund, Mak and her team had gone on to create another digital platform for mental health with support from the Jockey Club Charities Trust.
Mak said she hoped to find more ways to provide care to people in distress, as studies showed that just around a quarter of people with anxiety or depression would seek help.
“How could I develop a method that could [offer help] without the need of being face-to-face [with a therapist]?” she said, noting that it remained difficult for those with mental health issues to seek professional help during office hours, partly because of the persistent stigmatisation of mental illness in Hong Kong society.
“Digital means are good, as you could self-learn at any time.”


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News

Hong Kong

Health & Environment

HKU researchers say sewage surveillance technology first developed with Health Bureau funding now used by about 100 cities in mainland China


HKU researchers say sewage surveillance technology first developed with Health Bureau funding now used by about 100 cities in mainland China.


Coronavirus Hong Kong

Coronavirus pandemic