Newly described human polyomaviruses Merkel Cell, KI and WU are present in urban sewage and may represent potential environmental contaminants

Recently, three new polyomaviruses (KI, WU and Merkel cell polyomavirus) have been reported to infect humans. It has also been suggested that lymphotropic polyomavirus, a virus of simian origin, infects humans. KI and WU polyomaviruses have been detected mainly in specimens from the respiratory tract while Merkel cell polyomavirus has been described in a very high percentage of Merkel cell carcinomas. The distribution, excretion level and transmission routes of these viruses remain unknown

Exploring the diversity of coronavirus in sewage during COVID-19 pandemic: Don't miss the forest for the trees

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of next generation sequencing (NGS) has proved to be an important tool for the genetic characterization of SARS-CoV-2 from clinical samples. The use of different available NGS tools applied to wastewater samples could be the key for an in-depth study of the excreted virome, not only focusing on SARS-CoV-2 circulation and typing, but also to detect other potentially pandemic viruses within the same family. With this aim, 24-hours composite wastewater samples from March and July 2020 were sequenced by applying specific viral NGS as well as target enrichment NGS. The full virome of the analyzed samples was obtained, with human Coronaviridae members (CoV) present in one of those samples after applying the enrichment. One contig was identified as HCoV-OC43 and 8 contigs as SARS-CoV-2. CoVs from other animal hosts were also detected when applying this technique. These contigs were compared with those obtained from contemporary clinical specimens by applying the same target enrichment approach. The results showed that there is a co-circulation in urban areas of human and animal coronaviruses infecting domestic animals and rodents. NGS enrichment-based protocols might be crucial to describe the occurrence and genetic characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 and other Coronaviridae family members within the excreted virome present in wastewater.This study was partially supported by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (AGL2017-86797-C2-1-R) through the University of Barcelona and the Direcció General de Recerca i Innovació en Salut (DGRIS) Catalan Health Ministry Generalitat de Catalunya through Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR). Sílvia Bofill-Mas is a Serra-Hunter fellow at the University of Barcelona.Peer reviewe

Hepatitis E Virus Epidemiology in Industrialized Countries

To determine the prevalence of Hepatitis E virus (HEV) in industrialized nations, we analyzed the excretion of HEV strains by the populations of Spain, France, Greece, Sweden, and the United States. Twenty of 46 (43.5%) urban sewage samples collected in Barcelona from 1994 to 2002 tested positive for HEV. We identified 15 HEV strains, which were similar to two HEV isolates previously described in Barcelona in clinical samples and to strains from diverse geographic HEV-nonendemic areas. We also identified two HEV strains in sewage samples from Washington, D.C., and Nancy, France; these samples were also positive for Hepatitis A virus. In addition, we studied the role of pigs as a reservoir for HEV and identified one new swine HEV strain. Our results suggest that HEV may be more prevalent than previously considered in industrialized countries and that variants of the virus circulate simultaneously in one region

The Catalan Surveillance Network of SARS-CoV-2 in Sewage: design, implementation, and performance

Wastewater-based epidemiology has shown to be an efficient tool to track the circulation of SARS-CoV-2 in communities assisted by wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). The challenge comes when this approach is employed to help Health authorities in their decision-making. Here, we describe the roadmap for the design and deployment of SARSAIGUA, the Catalan Surveillance Network of SARS-CoV-2 in Sewage. The network monitors, weekly or biweekly, 56 WWTPs evenly distributed across the territory and serving 6 M inhabitants (80% of the Catalan population). Each week, samples from 45 WWTPs are collected, analyzed, results reported to Health authorities, and finally published within less than 72 h in an online dashboard ( https://sarsaigua.icra.cat ). After 20 months of monitoring (July 20-March 22), the standardized viral load (gene copies/day) in all the WWTPs monitored fairly matched the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases along the successive pandemic waves, showing a good fit with the diagnosed cases in the served municipalities (Spearman Rho = 0.69). Here we describe the roadmap of the design and deployment of SARSAIGUA while providing several open-access tools for the management and visualization of the surveillance data.The authors wish to thank the staff from all the WWTPs monitored for their help and technical support during the sampling campaigns. The authors acknowledge the funding received from the ACA and the ASPCAT from the Catalan Government (Generalitat de Catalunya). ICRA authors acknowledge the funding provided by the Generalitat de Catalunya through the Consolidated Research Group grants ICRA-ENV 2017 SGR 1124 and ICRA-TiA 2017 SGR 1318. ICRA researchers also thank the funding from the CERCA program of the Catalan Government.Peer reviewe

EDITORIAL: Sobre virus i emergències

Entenem com a virus emergent aquell virus que és nou o bé ha estat identificat recentment en humans, és a dir, ja existia però no en sabíem res d’ell, i per virus reemergent aquell virus ja conegut i controlat des de la perspectiva de la salut pública, però que veu augmentada la seva incidència o el rang geogràfic de les poblacions humanes afecta, o la seva virulència. Una zoonosi és una infecció que es transmet naturalment dels animals vertebrats (no humans) als humans i viceversa. El SARS-CoV-2 seria doncs un exemple clar de virus emergent i probablement zoonòtic tot i que encara desconeixem l’animal o animals que en són hostes primaris o intermediaris. En el cas del SARS aparegut al 2003 a la Xina, l’hoste primari n’era el ratpenat i l’hoste intermediari, que sembla ser qui va facilitar el salt a l’espècie humana, va ser el gat mesquer. Es calcula que un 75% de les infeccions emergents que afecten humans són zoonòtiques

Concentration methods for the quantification of coronavirus and other potentially pandemic enveloped virus from wastewater

Since the novel SARS-CoV-2 was detected in faeces, environmental researchers have been using centrifugal ultrafiltration, polyethylene glycol precipitation and aluminium hydroxide flocculation to describe its presence in wastewater samples. High recoveries (up to 65%) are described with electronegative filtration when using surrogate viruses, but few literature reports recovery efficiencies using accurate quantification of enveloped viruses. Considering that every single virus will have a different behaviour during viral concentration, it is recommended to use an enveloped virus, and if possible, a betacoronaviruses as murine hepatitis virus (MHV), as a surrogate. In this review we show new data from a new available technology that provides a quick ultrafiltration protocol for SARS-CoV-2. Wastewater surveillance is an efficient system for the evaluation of the relative prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infections in a community, and there is the need of using reliable concentration methods for an accurate and sensitive quantification of the virus in water.This work has been supported by the project AGL2017-86797-C2-1-R, PCI2019-103643, RTI2018-097346-B-I00, and AGL2017-86797-C2-1-R projects, all funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. S. Bofill-Mas is a Serra Hunter fellow at the University of Barcelona. Graphical Abstract was created with Biorender.com.Peer reviewe