Abstract
The detection of viruses in the sewage of an urban city by nucleic acid amplification techniques allows the identification of the viral strains that are circulating in the community. The aim of the study was the application of such detection which gives useful data on the distribution, spread, and frequency of these viruses, supporting epidemiological studies of the related viral infections. A two year (2007–2009) survey was conducted in order to evaluate the presence of human adenoviruses (hAdV), hepatitis A viruses (HAV), hepatitis E viruses (HEV), noroviruses (NoV), and human polyomaviruses (hPyV) in sewage samples collected from the inlet of a municipal biological wastewater treatment plant located in southwestern Greece. PCR methods were used for this survey. In total, viruses have been detected in 87.5% (42/48) of the analyzed sewage samples. Analytically, DNA viruses, hAdVs and hPyVs have been detected in 45.8% (22/48) and 68.8% (33/48) of the samples, respectively. As it concerns RNA viruses, HAV was detected in 8.3% (4/48), NoVs in 6.3% (3/48), while HEV has not been detected at all. After sequencing, AdVs were typed as Ad8, Ad40 and Ad41, while both JC and BK hPyVs have been recognized. All NoVs have been identified as GII4, while HAV was typed as genotype IA. Similar long-term studies could be undertaken in countries such as Greece in order to offer a valuable and complementary tool to current problematic epidemiological surveillance systems. This study demonstrates the advantages of environmental surveillance as a tool to determine the epidemiology of viruses circulating in a given community. To our knowledge this was the first of its kind study performed in Greece in order to establish this new way of surveillance.
Highlights
The bibliography has been enriched the last few years by several studies which have demonstrated the advantage of environmental surveillance as an additional tool to determine the epidemiology of different viruses circulating in a given community [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
The enteric viruses found in human stools belong to more than 140 types of which adenovirus (AdV), hepatitis A virus (HAV), norovirus (NoV) genotype I and II, rotavirus (RV) and enterovirus (EV) are those most often detected in the environment [11,12,13,14,15]
A two year (2007–2009) survey was conducted to examine the HAV, human adenoviruses (hAdV), hepatitis E viruses (HEV), NoVs, BKPyVs and JCPyVs presence in sewage samples collected from a biological wastewater treatment plant, located at the city of Patras
Summary
The bibliography has been enriched the last few years by several studies which have demonstrated the advantage of environmental surveillance as an additional tool to determine the epidemiology of different viruses circulating in a given community [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. The availability of improved detection techniques, combined with an increased awareness of gastroenteritis-causing viral pathogens, has led to the establishment of surveillance systems in various countries, since other enteric viruses responsible for gastroenteritis and hepatitis have replaced enteroviruses as the main target for detection [8,10]. HAdVs are associated with sporadic cases and occasional outbreaks of gastroenteritis. Out of the six subgroups, AdVs of subgroup F (enteric serotypes 40 and 41) are estimated to be associated with 5–20% of acute gastroenteritis cases among infants and young children [16]. NoVs are an important cause of epidemic acute gastroenteritis, and waterborne outbreaks of NoV-associated gastroenteritis are well documented [7]. The human polyomavirus has been shown to be present in high concentrations in the sewage, and its specificity as a human virus may be useful as a marker for fecal pollution of anthropogenic origin [17]
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