Nationwide Groundwater Surveillance of Noroviruses in South Korea, 2008

Abstract

To inspect the norovirus contamination of groundwater in South Korea, a nationwide study was performed in the summer (June to August) and winter (October to December) of 2008. Three-hundred sites designated by the government ministry were inspected. Water samples were collected for analysis of water quality, microorganism content, and viral content. Water quality was assessed by temperature, pH, turbidity, residual chlorine, and nitrite nitrogen content. Microorganism contents were analyzed bacteria, total coliforms, Escherichia coli, and bacteriophage. Virus analyses included panenterovirus and norovirus. Two primer sets were used for the detection of norovirus genotypes GI and GII, respectively. Of 300 samples, 65 (21.7%) were norovirus positive in the summer and in 52 (17.3%) were norovirus positive in the winter. The genogroup GI noroviruses that were identified were GI-1, GI-2, GI-3, GI-4, GI-5, GI-6, and GI-8 genotypes; those in the GII genogroup were GII-4 and GII-Yuri genotypes. The analytic data showed correlative relationships between the norovirus detection rate and the following parameters: water temperature and turbidity in physical-chemical parameters and somatic phage in microbial parameters. It is necessary to periodically monitor waterborne viruses that frequently cause epidemic food poisoning in South Korea for better public health and sanitary conditions.

Molecular epidemiology of norovirus GII.4 variants in children under 5 years with sporadic acute gastroenteritis in South Korea during 2006–2013

“…Viral RNA was extracted from the fecal supernatant using the QIAamp viral RNA mini-kit (QIAGEN, CA, USA) according to the manufacturer's instructions. For the detection and genotyping of NoVs, semi-nested RT-PCR was performed using specific primer sets (NV-GIF1 M/NV-GIR1 M/NV-GIF2 for NoV GI; NV-GIIF1 M/NV-GIIR1 M/NV-GIIF3 M for NoV GII), targeting the capsid gene (Region C) as previously described [22]. To obtain the nucleotide sequence of the P2 domain, we amplified a 674 bp fragment (positions 5730-6403 of NoV AY502023) with the forward primer EVP2F and the reverse primer EVP2R as previously reported [23].…”

Application of salivary antibody immunoassays for the detection of incident infections with Norwalk virus in a group of volunteers

“…Waterborne norovirus outbreaks are also reported regularly (Kukkula et al, 1999; Parshionikar et al, 2003; Blackburn et al, 2004; Yoder et al, 2008). In addition, sporadic waterborne infections may be common as suggested by the presence of noroviruses in surface and ground water sources (Lodder et al, 2010; Lee et al, 2011; Lambertini et al, 2012). However, linking infections to contaminated drinking water and quantifying public health benefits of more efficient treatment of public water supplies remains a challenge (USEPA 2006).…”

Noroviruses: Recent Updates

“…Transmission of NoVs is possible by person to person contact, aerosolization, and contaminated food or water [31,32]. Water reservoir and filtering animals living in contaminated waters, such as oysters, could be an important transmission route [31][32][33][34]. In a nationwide Korean study, groundwater samples were NoV positive in 21.5% (65/300) in the summer and 17.3% (52/300) in the winter [34].…”

“…Water reservoir and filtering animals living in contaminated waters, such as oysters, could be an important transmission route [31][32][33][34]. In a nationwide Korean study, groundwater samples were NoV positive in 21.5% (65/300) in the summer and 17.3% (52/300) in the winter [34]. The highest disease incidence is among children under five years of age.…”