TY - JOUR
T1 - Detection of Hepatitis E Virus in Sewage After an Outbreak on a French Island
AU - Miura, Takayuki
AU - Lhomme, Sébastien
AU - Le Saux, Jean Claude
AU - Le Mehaute, Philippe
AU - Guillois, Yvonnick
AU - Couturier, Elizabeth
AU - Izopet, Jacques
AU - Abranavel, Florence
AU - Le Guyader, Françoise S.
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) through JSPS Research Fellowships for Young Scientists (23-4434) (TM), by Grant 2010 CESA 01003 ‘Hevecodyn’ from the Agence Nationale pour la recherche (ANR), and by the EU-H2020 Grant N°643476 Compare. We acknowledge the help of the SAUR technicians for sampling. We are grateful to Catherine McLeod (Seafood Safety Assessment) for a critical review of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016, Springer Science+Business Media New York.
PY - 2016/9/1
Y1 - 2016/9/1
N2 - A hepatitis E outbreak, which occurred on a small isolated island, provided an opportunity to evaluate the association between the number of hepatitis E cases in the community and the concentration of virus detected in sewage. Samples were collected from the different sewage treatment plants from the island and analyzed for the presence of hepatitis E (HEV) virus using real-time RT-PCR. We demonstrated that if 1–4 % of inhabitants connected to a WWTP were infected with HEV, raw sewage contained HEV at detectable levels. The finding that such a small number of infected people can contaminate municipal sewage works raises the potential of the further distribution of the virus. Indeed, investigating the routes of transmission of HEV, including the potential for sewage effluent to contain infectious HEV, may help us to better understand the epidemiology of this pathogen, which is considered to be an emerging concern in Europe.
AB - A hepatitis E outbreak, which occurred on a small isolated island, provided an opportunity to evaluate the association between the number of hepatitis E cases in the community and the concentration of virus detected in sewage. Samples were collected from the different sewage treatment plants from the island and analyzed for the presence of hepatitis E (HEV) virus using real-time RT-PCR. We demonstrated that if 1–4 % of inhabitants connected to a WWTP were infected with HEV, raw sewage contained HEV at detectable levels. The finding that such a small number of infected people can contaminate municipal sewage works raises the potential of the further distribution of the virus. Indeed, investigating the routes of transmission of HEV, including the potential for sewage effluent to contain infectious HEV, may help us to better understand the epidemiology of this pathogen, which is considered to be an emerging concern in Europe.
KW - Hepatitis E virus
KW - Quantification
KW - Wastewater treatment plant
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84966564951&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1007/s12560-016-9241-9
DO - 10.1007/s12560-016-9241-9
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84966564951
SN - 1867-0334
VL - 8
SP - 194
EP - 199
JO - Food and Environmental Virology
JF - Food and Environmental Virology
IS - 3
ER -
