According to the WHO, on October 16, 2020, the spreading of the SARS-CoV-2, responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, reached 235 countries and territories, and resulting in more than 39 million confirmed cases and 1.09 million deaths globally. Monitoring of the virus outbreak is one of the main activities pursued to limiting the number of infected people and decreasing the number of deaths that have caused high pressure on the health care, social, and economic systems of different countries. Wastewater based epidemiology (WBE), already adopted for the surveillance of life style and health conditions of communities, shows interesting features for the monitoring of the COVID-19 diffusion. Together with wastewater, the analysis of airborne particles has been recently suggested as another useful tool for detecting the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in given areas. The present review reports the status of research currently performed concerning the monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 spreading by WBE and airborne particles. The former have been more investigated, whereas the latter is still at a very early stage, with a limited number of very recent studies. Nevertheless, the main results highlights in both cases necessitate more research activity for better understating and defining the biomarkers and the related sampling and analysis procedures to be used for this important aim.

据世界卫生组织称，2020 年 10 月 16 日，导致 COVID-19 大流行的 SARS-CoV-2 的传播已蔓延至 235 个国家和地区，导致全球确诊病例超过 3900 万例，死亡人数达 109 万人。监测病毒爆发是限制感染人数和减少死亡人数的主要活动之一，这些活动给不同国家的医疗保健、社会和经济系统造成了巨大压力。基于废水的流行病学 (WBE) 已用于监测社区的生活方式和健康状况，它显示出监测 COVID-19 扩散的有趣特征。与废水一起，空气中颗粒的分析最近被认为是检测特定区域是否存在 SARS-CoV-2 的另一种有用工具。本综述报告了目前有关监测 WBE 和空气颗粒传播 SARS-CoV-2 的研究状况。前者得到了更多的研究，而后者仍处于非常早期的阶段，最近的研究数量有限。然而，这两种情况的主要结果都强调需要更多的研究活动，以更好地理解和定义生物标志物以及用于这一重要目标的相关采样和分析程序。