Apakah Banjir Bisa Memperparah Penularan COVID-19?

Jakarta - Banjir melanda sejumlah kawasan di Indonesia, tak terkecuali di Jakarta, wilayah dengan angka COVID-19 tertinggi di Indonesia. Apakah banjir bisa memperparah penularan COVID-19?
SARS-CoV-2, nama lain dari virus Corona, menular lewat droplet (cairan dari hidung dan mulut) lewat bersin, batuk, hingga ludah. Saat banjir datang, tempat hidup warga terendam air.

Dikutip dari situs Organisasi Kesehatan Dunia (WHO), Selasa (21/9/2020), ada penyakit yang menular lewat air (water-borne disease), misalnya penyakit tifus, kolera, leptospirosis, dan hepatitis A.

Ada pula penyakit yang menular lewat vektor, yakni dibawa oleh hewan tertentu. Penyakit vector-borne disease ini antara lain demam berdarah, penyakit kuning, dan virus West Nile. Hewan-hewan pembawa penyakit (misalnya nyamuk) bisa saja berkembang biak lebih banyak bila kondisinya memungkinkan, gara-gara banjir atau hal lainnya.

Lalu bagaimana dengan virus Corona?

Dalam kondisi banjir, saluran-saluran got tergenang air, sungai-sungai meluap, bahkan jamban juga ikut terendam. Air banjir bisa saja mengandung urine hingga tinja banyak warga, sangat mungkin pula mengandung droplet berupa ludah atau ingus sembarang orang.

Virolog (ahli virus) Sebastian Wurtzer dari perusahaan air minum Eau de Paris menjelaskan, ada konsentrasi virus Corona di air limbah. Dia melakukan riset soal kandungan virus Corona di air limbah saat wabah COVID-19 merebak. Dia hendak menyelisik potensi kandungan virus di air limbah untuk memprediksi pandemi COVID-19 gelombang kedua.


"Got-got menyediakan data wabah dalam waktu yang sebenarnya (real-time), karena mereka mengumpulkan tinja dan urine secara konstan dan dapat mengandung virus Corona yang telah menginfeksi manusia," demikian kata Wutrzer, dilansir Science Magazine.

Studi serupa dijalankan oleh kelompok ilmuwan dari Belanda dan Amerika Serikat, Bertsch. Mereka meneliti saluran pembuangan yang menampung limbah 600 ribu orang di Australia, pada Marte dan April 2020. Mereka menemukan, virus Corona banyak ditemukan di limbah itu. Saat puncak wabah, virus Corona semakin banyak ditemukan di limbah itu.



Corona tidak menular lewat air

Tenang saja, virus Corona tidak menular lewat air. Paling tidak, risiko penularannya kecil.

WHO dalam panduan sementara, 'Air, Sanitasi, Kebersihan, dan Tata Air untuk SARS-CoV-2' tertanggal 29 Juli 2020, menjelaskan soal hal ini.


Virus Corona memang ada di air, namun virus itu tidak mampu menular ke manusia. WHO mendasarkan pada penelitian virus Corona di saluran air minum.

"Keberadaan SARS-CoV-2 di air minum yang tidak diolah adalah mungkin, namun virus itu tidak terdeteksi mampu menginfeksi lewat saluran air minum," kata WHO.

Di kawasan Italia utara, lokasi yang pernah dikecamuk COVID-19, ada sungai yang terdeteksi mengandung fragmen RNA virus Corona, alias potongan-potongan 'tubuh' si virus. Temuan itu didapatkan saat Italia mengalami puncak wabah. Namun risiko penularan dari air semacam ini dinyatakan rendah.


Bahkan, di kolam renang yang mengandung tinja, virus Corona juga ada. Namun virus itu tidak cukup kuat untuk menginfeksi manusia. Terlebih, bila kolam renang itu mengandung klorin, virus Corona bisa mati.

"Risiko penularan SARS-CoV-2 dari air murni dan air pesisir, atau kolam renang dan air di spa yang terkontaminasi tinja, adalah sangat rendah," kata WHO.

Di air banjir

Sama halnya dengan air got, air kolam renang bercampur tinja, atau sumber air minum, air banjir juga bisa saja mengandung Corona. Namun virus itu tidak cukup kuat untuk menginfeksi orang.

"Potensi penularan via air banjir itu kecil. COVID-19 ini bukan water-borne disease," kata epidemiolog Dicky Budiman, saat ditanyai detikcom, Selasa (22/9/2020).

Epidemiolog dari Universitas Griffith Australia alumni Universitas Padjadjaran ini menjelaskan, masyarakat tak perlu ketakutan soal air banjir yang mengandung virus Corona.

"Tidak usah terlalu khawatir soal masalah airnya, tapi prinsip pencegahan tetap dijaga," kata dia. Masyarakat harus tetap menerapkan penggunaan masker, jaga jarak, dan cuci tangan dengan sabun. Protokol kesehatan pencegahan COVID-19 harus senantiasa dijaga.


Ts

Yang sebenarnya virus corona (covid-19) adalah virus yang sangat baru penelitian masih kurang hingga data yang ada saat ini kurang kredibel


Hingga ada kata: panduan sementara, kecil, rendah dst


Panduan sementara bisa berubah sewaktu waktu bila ada input data terbaru dari virus ini

Kecil atau rendah nya itu seberapa 1% masih kecil kaĺau 10 % masih kecil juga?


COVID-19 Virus Found in Stool May Be Infectious


May 27, 2020 -- A new study has shown that COVID-19 virus isolated from the stool of a sick patient can infect cells in a petri dish.

The research is a step toward proving a new route of transmission for the infection. If confirmed by future studies, it would mean that people could get sick by ingesting tiny amounts of stool from others who are infected -- called the fecal-oral route of transmission. Other diarrhea diseases that pass from person to person this way include cholera and hepatitis.

It also raises the question of whether infectious virus can be blown into the air -- or aerosolized -- by a flushing toilet.


The world is covered in a thin veneer of stool,” says David Brett-Major, MD, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, referring to studies that have found bacteria from stool on nearly everything we touch daily -- from computer keyboards to the soles of our shoes to our clothes.

“Stool tends to get everywhere, so regular hand-washing is important,” he says.


Gastrointestinal symptoms -- nausea and diarrhea -- are common in patients who catch COVID-19. Previous studies have shown that about half of COVID-19 patients have the virus in their stool. Traces of the virus seem to remain in stool long after the virus can no longer be detected in nose and throat swabs.

Brett-Major and his colleagues sampled the rooms of people who were hospitalized for COVID-19 and those who tested positive and had no or only minor symptoms and were in quarantine at a different location.

It’s one of the reasons the CDC recommends giving a sick family member their own bathroom to use, if at all possible.

But Brett-Major’s study and others like it have only reported finding genetic material from the virus. They could not tell if any of the viral material they’d found could actually make anyone sick.

For that, scientists have to go a step further. They mix a solution of the virus with cells to see if the virus infects the cells and kills them.


Scientists in China who performed this test with virus they isolated from the stool of a COVID-19 patient found that it could infect living cells. When they looked at infected cells under an electron microscope, they could see the cells releasing viral particles that were presumably ready to go infect more cells, highlighting the potential for the disease to spread this way.

The researchers also determined there was about 100 times more virus in stool than in samples taken from the patients’ mouth and nose.

“The question really becomes how big is this, right? And how much does it matter in the grand scheme of things,” says Barun Mathema, PhD, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Columbia University in New York City.


Right now, that’s still a big unknown. The study sampled virus from the stool of very sick patients. There’s no way to know whether people with milder infections would generate as much of the virus or shed it as heavily. The study also used an experimental system -- scientists put cells and the virus together in the same petri dish to see what would happen. For that reason, it doesn’t reflect real-world transmission.


Still, Mathema says that in certain settings, the virus in stool could be an important factor in the spread of the disease.

“There will probably be multiple routes” of transmission, he says.

Right now, he says, “We certainly don’t think it is a major route.”

Currently, virus that’s released into the air from coughs and sneezes is thought to be the biggest driver of spread. Contact with contaminated surfaces, called fomite transmission, may also be playing a role.

Until more is known, Mathema says it’s not a bad idea to be careful in shared bathrooms, closing the lid on the toilet before you flush when you can to cut down on the creation of toilet plume aerosols.

“There is, for sure, a lot of aerosolization going on with flushing. Lids, it turns out, are very important,” he says.

Finally, the CDC says it’s critical to wash your hands for at least 20 seconds after going to the bathroom, changing a baby’s diaper, or helping an older child in the bathroom.