The Minister of Science and Innovation, Diana Morant, visited this Friday Golab the Global Omnium water laboratory, pioneer in developing the tool that allows early detection of covid in wastewater.
Morant has also closed the presentation of the book, coordinated by the environmental journalist José Sierra, which describes the research process and commissioning of the SARS-GOanalytics platform for the control of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in wastewater, developed by Global Omnium in collaboration with the Institute of Agrochemistry and Food Technology, of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC).
The platform, developed in record time thanks to a previous and intense public-private collaboration between the Valencian company and the CSIC, has been used as an early warning system to follow and anticipate the evolution of the pandemic in large cities and cities around the world. world, as well as in social health centers such as nursing homes, where it has been key in controlling the disease.
It has also been applied in companies and private groups in its PCR Group modality.
The book contains an extensive report on the background and gestation of the platform; a detailed report on its use in Valencia and other cities and various articles by researchers and experts from Global Omnium highlighting the potential of wastewater monitoring as a health tool, including an agreement with MIT for the development of technology monitoring.
It also includes collaborations from public institutions and cities in which the platform or methodology for wastewater analysis developed by Global Omnium has been key in monitoring the pandemic. Among them are those of Valencia, Burlington (USA), Lanzarote, Madrid and Gandia.
The presentation of the book “SARS-GOanalytics: A universal tool for health” was also attended by the Regional Secretary of the Ministry of Health, Concha Andrés, the Councilor for the Water Cycle of the Valencia City Council, Elisa Valia, and the CSIC researcher Gloria Sanchez.
During her visit, Minister Morant assured that “we use this tool to respond to an emergency. The Government of Spain wants this example to be replicated through the Transformation and Resilience funds. In 40 years of being members of the EU we have not received so many funds, through the economic transformation plans to get out of this crisis through the door of the future.
“We want to get out of these crises together and hence these PERTEs, such as the digitalization of the water cycle, thanks to this PERTE we will accompany the companies of this country to be much more efficient as cities and spaces of life and society, more respectful of the planet and greater control of a commodity as precious as water, to pursue the objectives of sustainable development”, he pointed out.
«Global Omnium at that time in Gandia as a water company made this instrument available to the public health unit so that the health workers made the right decisions every time we had results and we adapted because there were different times. This tool was predicting what was happening to us », he added.
The minister stated that “I am sure that this tool saved many lives, I would dare to say that hundreds and thousands of lives, so my thanks and deep appreciation to those who made it possible”.
For her part, the CISC-IATA researcher Gloria Sánchez, has focused on the fact that “we are capable of contributing our grain of sand from the field of research and transferring this knowledge to society. Nobody expected that we could contribute to this pandemic. Continue to foster this level of collaboration as with Global Omnium. There is an international structure, a network of laboratories and that we are able, once the covid has passed, to continue improving people’s health ».
Elisa Valia, councilor for the Water Cycle of the Valencia City Council, has highlighted the “commitment of Global Omnium with the city of Valencia and putting it at the service of citizens”. She has also stated that it is very positive “the public-private collaboration scheme is a paradigmatic example of how it can work successfully.” She has summed up this work carried out on the city’s wastewater as “making the invisible visible.”
In the same way, Concha Andrés, sutonomic secretary of the Ministry of Health, has assured that at the worst moment of the pandemic «it was very important to have information and data that allowed us to plan better and it was essential to share this data and whoever could contribute knowledge and intelligence to fight the pandemic.” She has affirmed the current importance of the “Recovery Plan where one of the levers is the promotion of research and science”.
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