Detection of enteroviruses and their removal efficiency in the wastewater treatment plants

Abstract

Enteroviruses are small and non-enveloped RNA viruses and are also known as viruses that cause waterborne diseases such as gastrointestinal disease or hand-foot-mouth disease in humans from mild symptoms to severe syndromes in Thailand. Since enteroviruses are highly persistent and stabilize the environment, they’re normally found in every media in an environment especially in sewage. Hand-foot-mouth disease is one of the diseases caused by the infection of enterovirus. Mostly infect in infants to child because they have a low amount of immunity. Wastewater management is crucial in the case of protecting and avoiding infection by monitoring the interested virus routinely. Improved and sustainable infrastructure for water quality and facilities is also an important requirement for the reduction of human health risks and environmental protection. Therefore, to investigate that can the infected handfoot- mouth cases be substituted by the prevalence of enterovirus in sewage, also, looking for the effectiveness of wastewater treatment plants. In this study, wastewater samples are collected by grab sampling from three wastewater treatment plants: Dindaeng wastewater treatment plant, Nong Khaem wastewater treatment plant, and Chong Nonsi wastewater treatment plant. Studying the correlation between the prevalence of enterovirus in wastewater and the infected hand-foot-mouth disease cases. The results were determined that there is no correlation between the prevalence of enterovirus in wastewater and the infected hand-footmouth disease cases. Also, studying the three wastewater treatment plants removal efficiency. The results found that the Dindaeng wastewater treatment plant has at least 1-log reduction removal efficiency. The reason is these three wastewater treatment plants have not added a disinfection process that can treat the biological contaminations.