World Health Organization : Technical Report Series, No. 639: Human Viruses in Water, Wastewater and Soil

By G. A. Bagdasarjan

Book Id: WPLBN0000166679
Format Type: PDF eBook
File Size: 2.0 MB
Reproduction Date: 2005

Title:	World Health Organization : Technical Report Series, No. 639: Human Viruses in Water, Wastewater and Soil
Author:	G. A. Bagdasarjan
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Health., Public health, Wellness programs
Collections:	Medical Library Collection, World Health Collection
Historic Publication Date:
Publisher:	World Health Organization


Citation APA MLA Chicago Bagdasarjan, G. A. (n.d.). World Health Organization : Technical Report Series, No. 639. Retrieved from http://gutenberg.us/

Description
Medical Reference Publication

Excerpt
1. INTRODUCTION Increasing attention is being paid to the contamination of water and soil by viruses. This problem, as a factor in the spread of viral diseases, has far-reaching implications which have yet to be fully appreciated by the medical and public health professions. Most of the rivers that serve as sources of drinking-water carry varying amounts of wastewater, which sometimes reach a proportion of 50% and more during periods of low flo~vE. xtremely rapid urbanization in developing countries has raised critical problems of water supply and waste disposal. In many parts of both the developing and the developed world increasing demands on available water resources due to the growth of the world's population and the concurrent expansion of industrial needs make the recycling of domestic wastewater inevitable. Extensive practical knowledge of the monitoring and treatment of bacterial contamination of waters is available, but there is only limited experience with regard to viral contamination. Present water treatment procedures may not always be sufficient to prevent viruses from reaching community water supplies. One major problem is the development of adequate methods to ensure that viruses pathogenic to man are eliminated from heavily contaminated and reclaimed waters.

Table of Contents
CONTENTS Page 1 . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2 . Human viruses in polluted water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2.1 Enteroviruses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.2 Hepatitis A virus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 2.3 Gastroenteritis viruses of the Norwalk type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 2.4 Reoviruses and rotaviruses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 2.5 Adenoviruses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 2.6 Parvoviruses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 3 . The minimum infective dose of ingested viruses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 4 . Limits of epidemiological investigations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I I 5 . Sources of infection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 5.1 Wastewater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 5.2 Drinking-water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 5.3 Seawater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 5.4 Water used for recreation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 5.5 Soil and crops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 5.6 Groundwater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 5.7 Aerosols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 6 . Virus monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 6.1 Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 6.2 Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 6.3 Bacteria and bacteriophages as indicators of enteric viruses . . . . . . . . 28 7 . Virus removal by treatment processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 7.1 Wastewater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 7.2 Sludge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 7.3 Drinking-water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 8 . Natural recycling and intentional reclamation of water . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 8.1 Natural recycling and pollution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 8.2 Intentional reclamation of water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 8.3 Permissible limits of viral contamination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 9 . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 10 . Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Annex 1 . Methods for the detection of viruses in water and sludge . . . . . . . . 44