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. 2023 Sep 15:891:164414.
doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.164414. Epub 2023 May 23.

Wastewater surveillance of Mpox virus in Baltimore

Samendra P Sherchan  1 , Tamunobelema Solomon  2 , Oladele Idris  2 , Daniel Nwaubani  2 , Ocean Thakali  3
Affiliations

Wastewater surveillance of Mpox virus in Baltimore

Samendra P Sherchan et al. Sci Total Environ. .

Abstract

This study aimed to utilize wastewater surveillance for monitoring Mpox cases at a community level. Untreated wastewater samples were collected once a week from two wastewater treatment plants (A and B) in Baltimore City from July 27, 2022-September 22, 2022. The samples were concentrated via an adsorption-elution (AE) method and Polyethylene Glycol (PEG) precipitation method followed by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Monkeypox virus (MPXV) was detected in 89 % (8/9) samples from WWTP A and 55 % (5/9) samples from WWTP B with at least one concentration method. Higher detection rate in samples concentrated with PEG precipitation compared to AE method was observed, indicating that PEG precipitation is a more effective virus concentration method for MPXV. To our knowledge, this is the first study reporting the detection of MPXV in wastewater in Baltimore. The results highlight that wastewater surveillance could be used as a complementary early warning tool for monitoring future Mpox outbreaks.

Keywords: Adsorption-elution; Monkeypox; PEG precipitation; Wastewater-based epidemiology.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing interests.

Figures

Unlabelled Image
Graphical abstract
Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Concentration of MPXV in wastewater collected in different weeks and number of new Mpox cases in Baltimore.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Wastewater mpox viral DNA concentration.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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