Outbreak of viral gastroenteritis due to sewage-contaminated drinking water

Outbreaks of Gastroenteritis That Occurred during School Excursions in Korea Were Associated with Several Waterborne Strains of Norovirus

“…Several large outbreaks due to contaminated water have been described (1-4, 7, 9, 10). However, there are few reports in which epidemiological and environmental data have been supported by molecular data on the waterborne norovirus (1,2,7,10). This report describes an investigation of two outbreaks of gastroenteritis caused by several strains of norovirus during school excursions to Jeju Island, South Korea, which were traced to contaminated groundwater, the supplemental water supply to the hotels.…”

“…Although norovirus outbreaks have been identified before, few studies have linked the outbreaks with food handlers or environmental constituents by molecular analysis (1,2,7,10). Furthermore, the identification of several norovirus strains in the outbreak (4,7,9), the presence of fecal bacteria in the water samples (3,7), and epidemiological evidence such as doseresponse relationships (1) support the inference that contaminated groundwater was the source of these outbreaks.…”

One-year monthly survey of rotavirus, astrovirus and norovirus in three sewage treatment plants in Beijing, China and associated health risk assessment

“…Sewage water contains much higher numbers of viruses (Meleg et al 2006) and sewage workers frequently exposed to raw sewage were found to be at higher risk of intestinal disease (Rylander 1999;Venczel et al 2003). The effluent with enteric pathogens from the sewerage systems, which directly entered into the water environment, was found to be one of the most important causes of waterborne outbreak (Hafliger et al 2000), therefore, Sewerage systems should be regarded as an important nodes to monitor and control human enteric pathogens transmission (Katayama et al 2008). Consequently, viral contamination resulting from the use of these treated waters will produce a risk that needs to be addressed (Arraj et al 2008).…”

Inactivation of Enteric Adenovirus and Feline Calicivirus by Chlorine Dioxide

“…Members of the human calicivirus genus, noroviruses (NVs), are a principal cause of nonbacterial acute gastroenteritis (11,28) and have been identified as etiological agents of waterborne outbreaks (20,29,31,32). Caliciviruses range in diam-eter from 27 to 40 nm and have a single-stranded RNA genome and an icosahedral capsid structure.…”