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. 1980 Dec;40(6):1067–1079. doi: 10.1128/aem.40.6.1067-1079.1980

Effects of environmental variables and soil characteristics on virus survival in soil.

C J Hurst, C P Gerba, I Cech
PMCID: PMC291723  PMID: 6257161

Abstract

Because of the increasing emphasis placed upon land application as a means of wastewater disposal, it is important to evaluate the influences of different factors upon virus survival in soil. The objective of this study was to measure the effects of various environmental variables on virus persistence. Test samples of soil were placed in vials, and the soil was wetted with suspensions of virus in either distilled water, unchlorinated secondary sewage effluent, or mixtures of effluent and water. The viruses used were coxsackieviruses A9 and B3, echovirus 1, poliovirus 2, rotavirus SA11, and bacteriophages T2 and MS2. The rate of virus inactivation was evaluated statistically with regard to conditions under which the vials were incubated and to the soil characteristics. The factors that were found to influence virus survival were temperature, soil moisture content, presence of aerobic microorganisms, degree of virus adsorption to the soil, soil levels of resin-extractable phosphorus, exchangeable aluminium, and soil pH. Overall, temperature and virus adsorption to soil appeared to be the most important factors affecting virus survival.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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