A review of the impact of hospital effluents on human and animal health during the pandemic covid 19

The permanent increase of the contagion focus during the COVID 19 pandemic has contributed to a continuous discharge of SARS-CoV-2 virus and a large portion of unchanged or metabolized drugs through patients' stool and urine into hospital effluents. At present, untreated hospital sewage disposal practices result in a very high and continuous overload of these micropollutants into the environment. Their discharge into rivers and coastal waters is likely to have adverse effects in all exposed environmental compartments. Furthermore, the study of the dynamics of the SARS COV2 virus associated with COVID19 focuses primarily on the diagnosis and treatment of humans. However, such an approach does not allow the prevention of transmission to humans and animals, nor does it allow the assessment of the persistence of the infectivity of this virus in the environment. Therefore, there is a need to improve knowledge of the survival and infectivity of SARS-CoV-2 in the receiving environment to prevent environmental spread and transmission to humans and animals. Nevertheless, a better understanding of the risks associated with the environmental spread of SARS-CoV-2 is necessary to control the spread of the current COVID-19 pandemic and to prepare for the emergence of future virus pandemics. The objective of this literature review is to investigate the risks of persistence of viable and infectious SARS-CoV-2 virus and its dissemination in hospital effluents due to their relatively high concentrations and damage to public health, wildlife and ecology.