posted on 2021-08-18, 02:29authored byFranciscus Chandra, Wei Lin Lee, Federica Armas, Mats Leifels, Xiaoqiong Gu, Hongjie Chen, Stefan Wuertz, Eric J. Alm, Janelle Thompson
Arboviruses are viral
pathogens transmitted by blood-borne vectors
that impose a great social and economic burden globally. Most clinical
surveillance of arbovirus outbreaks underestimates the true prevalence
as a large proportion of cases exhibit no or only mild clinical symptoms
(i.e., are subclinical). Reports of urinary shedding of several arboviruses
such as Dengue (DENV), yellow fever (YFV), and Zika (ZIKV) viruses
suggest the possibility of utilizing wastewater surveillance to assess
the prevalence of arboviral outbreaks. To determine the feasibility
of wastewater surveillance, we investigated the decay of representative
arboviruses (including DENV-2, DENV-3, YFV, and ZIKV) along with murine
hepatitis virus (MHV) as a surrogate for human coronavirus within
a wastewater matrix at 6, 25, or 37 °C using RT-qPCR. DENV-2,
DENV-3, YFV, ZIKV, and MHV experienced a one log10 reduction
within 3.95–6.21 days at 25 °C and within 2.60–5.12
days at 37 °C, while incubation at 6 °C did not indicate
substantial decay within 21 days. Our work suggests that these arboviruses
or their RNA could persist sufficiently in wastewater over a range
of temperatures, supporting the potential for wastewater-based surveillance
of arboviral outbreaks.