TITLE:
Environmental Engineering for Stopping Viruses Pandemics
AUTHORS:
Djamel Ghernaout, Noureddine Elboughdiri
KEYWORDS:
Coronaviruses, COVID-19, Wastewater-Based Epidemiology (WBE), Particulate Matters (PMs), Wastewater Treatment Plant, Disinfection
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.7 No.4,
April
22,
2020
ABSTRACT:
A huge number of investigations on the ecological sources, fate, and transport of viruses have been dedicated to non-enveloped viruses such as norovirus and enteroviruses. However, more recent global outbreaks of viral diseases have been provoked by enveloped viruses comprising viruses from the Coronavirus family (SARS, MERS, COVID-19). Enveloped viruses have a lipid membrane encircling their protein capsid and genome. SARS-CoV-2 will surely not be the ultimate fresh virus to jut and badly terrorize worldwide public health and life. Scientists and funding agencies have a trend to concentrate largely on a particular virus throughout its eruption; however, then advance on to different themes when the eruption calms. Considering the historical contributions from environmental engineering, and the huge dares that emerge, environmental science and engineering specialists have to adopt a larger, long-term, and more quantitative strategy to comprehending viruses that are diffusing through nature. Identical to the manner by which chemical contaminants are handled in the environment, the particular properties that control transport and demobilization of enveloped viruses in solutions, on surfaces, and in the air must be understood. Besides, the fashion by which ecological parameters form likely virus transmission mechanisms should be comprehended. Thereby, despite the identity of the enveloped virus that provokes the following main eruption, more sophisticated detailing of its endurance and guidance on how to reduce its diffusion may be given.