title: Poliovirus surveillance by examining sewage specimens. Quantitative recovery of virus after introduction into sewerage at remote upstream location.
abstract: In order to assess the feasibility of environmental poliovirus surveillance, known amounts of poliovirus type 1, strain Sabin, were flushed into the sewage network of Helsinki. Grab specimens collected at a remote downstream location and concentrated about a 100-fold revealed infectious poliovirus on four successive days in all three separate experiments. As for concentration, a simple two-phase separation method was found to be at least as useful as a several-fold more resource-demanding polyethylene glycol (PEG) precipitation method. Recovery of the introduced virus was remarkably high (more than 10%). Using the current system, it might be possible to detect poliovirus circulation in a population of 700,000 people by examining a single 400 ml sewage specimen, if 1 out of 10,000 inhabitants were excreting the virus. It is concluded that environmental surveillance is a sensitive approach to monitor silent poliovirus circulation in populations served by a sewage network.
authors.affiliation: Enterovirus Laboratory, WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Poliomyelitis, National Public Health Institute (KTL), Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hovi
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stenvik
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Partanen
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kangas
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002460:Cell Line; D029822:Enterovirus B, Human / Q000145:classification / Q000302:isolation & purification; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D005387:Finland; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D017955:Poliovirus / Q000145:classification / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D012703:Serotyping; D012722:Sewage / Q000821:virology*
chemical_list: D012722:Sewage