IMPLEMENTATION
Problem
Since the COVID-19, the entire Chinese economy has been affected. Based on our research and interviews with epidemic prevention workers about, we found that the cost of prevention and control is enormous. Because we couldn't get more detailed information from the frontliner during the interview, we estimated the financial cost of“Normalization of all nucleic acids”. According to the information provided by Zongkai Zheng of the statistics bureau, we have divided the total nucleic acid expenditure into the following three parts:
The cost of the two tests was not the same, so questionnaires were distributed in Putian, Cangshan and Pingtan counties. A total of 1264 questionnaires were collected. Due to the small proportion of antigen detection, In the following estimates, the antigen assay will be classified as a nucleic acid assay.
The questionnaire does not collect the person's IP address and other personal information, to ensure that our survey will not leak information to the public.
As the results of the 2022 population statistics are not yet available, according to the total population of Fujian Province in 2021 is about 48 million people, each nucleic acid testing site is responsible for 3,000 people, and each testing site costs 40,000,000 RMB to establish. The estimated annual additional expenditure is 640,000,000 RMB.
In addition to the medical staff responsible for sampling, the general public can also participate in the sampling work after receiving training. Based on the requirements and related policies, we assume that a sampling site requires three sampling personnel (300 RMB/person/day) and one information entry clerk (200 RMB/person/day) for each sampling. Estimated annual additional expenditure of 6,424,000,000 RMB
The testing institutions were mainly hospitals and third-party testing institutions. We use the sampling cost of Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University Hospital of RMB5 as the unit price of expenditure, including the cost of swabs, reagents and test tubes for testing, PCR testing, etc. Estimated annual new expenditure of 87,600,000,000 RMB
According to the estimated financial expenditure of 504,851,000,000 RMB in Fujian Province in 2021, the additional expenditure of 94,664,000,000 RMB in Fujian Province in 2022 for the regularization of nucleic acid testing is estimated above, accounting for 18.75% of the annual expenditure.
This is a very large financial expense! Obviously, our normal life cannot afford such frequent nucleic acid testing.
Project Position
We reviewed the last two years of innovative solutions for outbreak preparedness. They have created robots and assembly lines that automatically detect nucleic acid tests. This does not change the fact that pathogens spread nor does it save the government money.
We wanted to create a more convenient detection device in order to add a means of detection and save the government additional expense. Our ultimate audience is the government as well as the testing authorities, and we hope to provide information on the dynamics of virus concentrations in sewage. With knowledge of sewage epidemiology, we have developed a model of the relationship between viruses in sewers and the number of infected people in town, and the results of our device are expressed in terms of fluorescence intensity. Our backend program directly checks the modeling model against this fluorescence intensity to finally determine the dynamic trend of the local outbreak. And a report is automatically generated and reported to the epidemic prevention department.
The public's concerns
We presented our project implementation plan for various government departments. They raised some concerns with us.
First, when it comes to genetic engineering, they all have some concerns. Almost all of them expressed the fear of ecological changes caused by the spillover of GMOs into the environment. In particular, we need to treat in sewage. The damage caused by the spillover of GMOs would be incalculable.
Secondly, when they learned that we wanted to use the device in the sewage network, they raised the possibility that our device could cause clogging of the sewage network. And that our device would be added to the city's sewage network, which must take into account the environmental friendliness and longevity of the materials used in our hardware.
Security and Licensing
Mo Renping told us a qualified product, first of all, to protect human health, national standards, industry standards and requirements, can not be harmful to human health. If we want to use it in a broader scope, we need to pass the testing of the product by the Quality Supervision Administration
1. whether it will cause environmental pollution
2. whether it will cause biological leakage.
For laboratory safety, we consulted Professor Chen-Yun Guo from the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, who provided us with advice on the safety of relevant biological materials.
For the hardware, we use a photosensitive resin that is virtually non-toxic to humans and can degrade under UV light.
At the same time, we implanted light-coupled suicide genes into the engineered bacteria in the final hardware. When irradiated by blue light for a long time, the suicide mechanism in the engineered bacteria is triggered. The bacteria will lyse and die. And the final test waste liquid will all be centralized and recycled by professionals.
Project Implementation
Ultimately, we used the strains that we can "carry" and "detect" viruses in our equipment. The system is placed in the sewers of residential sewage. When an infected person is present in a residential area, his sewage carries the virus, and we convert the corresponding virus concentration into fluorescence intensity by means of a detection device in the sewer. When our system detects the fluorescence, it is immediately matched with the model in the background. The number of infected people in the area is then determined. And generate a report to the epidemic prevention department.
Future and Challenges
Our project still faces many challenges, starting with the fact that effluent epidemiology has not been widely used for the study of various infectious diseases. There is a lack of relevant epidemiological data to support the novel virus COVID-19. When an outbreak of an unknown infectious disease occurs, existing experience is still needed to support it.
Secondly, we have been questioned by many people in promoting our project. Wastewater epidemiology and synthetic biology as an emerging discipline are not supported by most people. Many people still feel that our project is too "science fiction". This will require continued advocacy and science education in the future.
It is worth mentioning that we have received considerable obstacles in collecting epidemic, sewerage and economic data, many of which are not available to the public. We had to simplify the model in a number of ways. This has hampered our project a lot.
Finally, we hope that in the future our program will not only work in Fuzhou, but we know that many developing countries have exceeded their detection limits at the time of an outbreak. We hope that our equipment will also enable localized testing in certain areas when there is a large outbreak, as well as alleviate the pressure on the government to test in that country
