Bibby Kyle, Fischer Robert J, Casson Leonard W, Stachler Elyse, Haas Charles N, Munster Vincent J
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Department of Computational and Systems Biology, University of Pittsburgh , Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15261, United States ; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Department of Computational and Systems Biology, University of Pittsburgh , Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15261, United States.
Laboratory of Virology, Division of Intramural Research, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health , Hamilton, Montana 59840, United States.
Environ Sci Technol Lett. 2015 Sep 8;2(9):245-249. doi: 10.1021/acs.estlett.5b00193. Epub 2015 Aug 17.
In the wake of the ongoing 2014/2015 Ebola virus outbreak, significant questions regarding the appropriate handling of Ebola virus-contaminated liquid waste remain, including the persistence of Ebola virus in wastewater. To address these uncertainties, we evaluated the persistence of Ebola virus spiked in sterilized domestic sewage. The viral titer decreased approximately 99% within the first test day from an initial viral titer of 10 TCID mL; however, it could not be determined if this initial rapid decrease was due to aggregation or inactivation of the viral particles. The subsequent viral titer decrease was less rapid, and infectious Ebola virus particles persisted for all 8 days of the test. The inactivation constant () was determined to be -1.08 (2.1 days for a 90% viral titer decrease). Due to experimental conditions, we believe these results to be an upper bound for Ebola virus persistence in wastewater. Wastewater composition is inherently heterogeneous; subsequently, we caution that interpretation of these results should be made within a holistic assessment, including the effects of wastewater composition, dilution, and potential exposure routes within wastewater infrastructure. While it remains unknown if Ebola virus may be transmitted via wastewater, these data demonstrate a potential exposure route to infectious Ebola virus via wastewater and emphasize the value of a precautionary approach to wastewater handling in an epidemic response.
在2014/2015年埃博拉病毒持续爆发之后，关于如何妥善处理受埃博拉病毒污染的液体废物仍存在重大问题，其中包括埃博拉病毒在废水中的存活情况。为了解决这些不确定性问题，我们评估了添加到经过消毒的生活污水中的埃博拉病毒的存活情况。病毒滴度在测试的第一天内从初始病毒滴度10 TCID/mL下降了约99%；然而，无法确定这种初始的快速下降是由于病毒颗粒的聚集还是失活。随后病毒滴度下降速度变缓，在整个8天的测试期间，具有传染性的埃博拉病毒颗粒一直存在。失活常数（）被确定为-1.08（病毒滴度下降90%所需时间为2.1天）。由于实验条件的限制，我们认为这些结果是埃博拉病毒在废水中存活时间的上限。废水成分本质上是异质的；因此，我们提醒，对这些结果的解释应在全面评估的范围内进行，包括废水成分、稀释以及废水处理设施内潜在暴露途径的影响。虽然埃博拉病毒是否可通过废水传播仍不清楚，但这些数据证明了通过废水接触传染性埃博拉病毒的潜在途径，并强调了在疫情应对中采取预防性废水处理方法的重要性。
