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. 2023 Mar 15:864:161023.
doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.161023. Epub 2022 Dec 18.

Occurrence of multiple respiratory viruses in wastewater in Queensland, Australia: Potential for community disease surveillance

Warish Ahmed  1 , Aaron Bivins  2 , Mikayla Stephens  3 , Suzanne Metcalfe  3 , Wendy J M Smith  3 , Kwanrawee Sirikanchana  4 , Masaaki Kitajima  5 , Stuart L Simpson  6
Affiliations

Occurrence of multiple respiratory viruses in wastewater in Queensland, Australia: Potential for community disease surveillance

Warish Ahmed et al. Sci Total Environ. .

Abstract

The early warning and tracking of COVID-19 prevalence in the community provided by wastewater surveillance has highlighted its potential for much broader viral disease surveillance. In this proof-of-concept study, 46 wastewater samples from four wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in Queensland, Australia, were analyzed for the presence and abundance of 13 respiratory viruses, and the results were compared with reported clinical cases. The viruses were concentrated using the adsorption-extraction (AE) method, and extracted nucleic acids were analyzed using qPCR and RT-qPCR. Among the viruses tested, bocavirus (BoV), parechovirus (PeV), rhinovirus A (RhV A) and rhinovirus B (RhV B) were detected in all wastewater samples. All the tested viruses except influenza B virus (IBV) were detected in wastewater sample from at least one WWTP. BoV was detected with the greatest concentration (4.96-7.22 log10 GC/L), followed by Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) (4.08-6.46 log10 GC/L), RhV A (3.95-5.63 log10 GC/L), RhV B (3.74-5.61 log10 GC/L), and PeV (3.17-5.32 log10 GC/L). Influenza viruses and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are notifiable conditions in Queensland, allowing the gene copy (GC) concentrations to be compared with reported clinical cases. Significant correlations (ρ = 0.60, p < 0.01 for IAV and ρ = 0.53, p < 0.01 for RSV) were observed when pooled wastewater influenza A virus (IAV) and RSV log10 GC/L concentrations were compared to log10 clinical cases among the four WWTP catchments. The positive predictive value for the presence of IAV and RSV in wastewater was 97 % for both IAV and RSV clinical cases within the four WWTP catchments. The overall accuracy of wastewater analysis for predicting clinical cases of IAV and RSV was 97 and 90 %, respectively. This paper lends credibility to the application of wastewater surveillance to monitor respiratory viruses of various genomic characteristics, with potential uses for increased surveillance capabilities and as a tool in understanding the dynamics of disease circulation in the communities.

Keywords: Public health; RT-qPCR; Respiratory viruses; Surveillance; Wastewater; qPCR.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Unlabelled Image
Graphical abstract
Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Box-and-whisker plots of the concentrations (log10 GC/L) of respiratory viruses in wastewater samples collected from four wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). The lower and upper boxes denote 25th and 75th percentiles. The lower and upper bars represent the 5th and 95th percentiles. + denotes mean.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Correlations between concentrations (log10 GC/L) of IAV and RSV (A + B) with weekly influenza and RSV cases in four WWTP catchments. Triangle symbols represent no detection. Columns are representing weekly reported cases. In some cases, the log10 cases/week values are too small to illustrate.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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