Table 1.
Categories and the corresponding diseases caused by waterborne viruses as well as quantitative virus reduction in WWTPs.
| Viruses | Genome | Dimension (nm) | Major diseases | Influent | Effluent | Virus reduction (log10) | Technologies | Detection methods | References |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enteroviruses | ssRNA | 20–100 (Guo and Hu, 2011) | Minor febrile illness, gastroenteritis, aseptic meningitis, paralysis, myocarditis (Iaconelli et al., 2017) | 3.3 × 107 GC/mL | 7.6 × 106 GC/mL | 0.63 | Italy; grid separation, primary sedimentation, secondary bio-logical treatment and disinfection | RT-PCR, Real-time qPCR | (Rosa et al., 2010) |
| Coxsackieviruses | 3.24 × 105 copies/L | 1.54 × 103 copies/L | 2.32 | Arizona, United States; activated sludge and trickling filter | RT-PCR | (Kitajima et al., 2015) | |||
| Astroviruses | ssRNA | 25–35 (Jacukowicz and Domanska-Blicharz, 2017) | Gastroenteritis (Vu et al., 2019) | NG | 2.69 × 103 copies/L | – | France; primary decantation and biological secondary treatment From May 2013 to May 2014 | RT-qPCR | (Prevost et al., 2015) |
| Pepper mild mottle virus | ssRNA | – | Infections to solanaceous plants, mottled or yellow and green floral leaves on plants, malformation or bump spots on fruits | 3.7–4.4 × 106/3.2–9.4 × 106 copies/L | 4.6–6.3 × 105/copies/L | 0.76–0.99/1.8 ± 0.2 | Southern Arizona, USA; Plant A (conventional activated sludge process); Plant B (biological trickling filter process) | TaqMan-based qPCR | (Kitajima et al., 2014) |
| Norovirus genotypes GI/GII | ssRNA | 25–40 (Cheetham et al., 2006) | Acute gastroenteritis (evacuation, vomiting, fever, abdominal pain) (Teixeira et al., 2016) | 8.8 × 104 GC/L | 3 × 104 GC/L | 0.47 | North Wales, UK; WWTP with filter beds for secondary treatment and serves ca. 4000 inhabitants | RT-qPCR | (Farkas et al., 2018) |
| Sapoviruses | ssRNA | 25–40 (Cheetham et al., 2006) | 7.8 × 106 GC/L | NG | – | New Caledonia; sample collected from April 2012 to March 2013 | RT-qPCR | (Kaas et al., 2016) | |
| Rotaviruses | dsRNA | 55 (double-capsid) 70 (single-capsid) (Saif et al., 1980) |
Gastroenteritis, diarrhea (especially for young children) (Banyai et al., 2018) | 1.2 × 105 GC/L | 2.6 × 104 GC/L | 0.66 | Eastern Cape, South Africa; activated sludge system with 40,000 m3/day flow rate | Quantitative TaqMan real-time PCR | (Osuolale and Okoh, 2017) |
| Adenoviruses | dsDNA | 75–90 (Needle et al., 2019; San Martin and Burnett, 2003) | Respiratory disease, gastroenteritis, pneumonia, urinary disease, conjunctivitis, hepatitis, myocarditis, encephalitis (Iaconelli et al., 2017) | 4.3 × 105–8.7 × 106 GC/mL | 1.22 × 104–3.7 × 106 GC/mL | – | Egypt; 330,000 m3/day capacity | Real time PCR | (Elmahdy et al., 2019) |
| Aichi viruses | ssRNA | 30 (Burutaran et al., 2015) | Acute gastroenteritis | 9.7 × 104/2.0 × 106 copies/L | 1.1 × 104/2.0 × 105 copies/L | 0.94–0.99 | Southern Arizona, USA; conventional activated sludge process/biological trickling filter process | TaqMan-based qPCR | (Cheetham et al., 2006) |
| Hepatitis A virus | ssRNA | 27–30 (Feinstone et al., 1973) | Sporadic hepatitis (Iaconelli et al., 2017) | 2.01 × 103–8.39 × 103 copies/L | 1.93 × 103–8.70 × 103 copies/L | – | Kampala, Uganda; conventional activated sludge method, in summer 2016 | qPCR and quantitative RT-PCR | (O'Brien et al., 2017) |
| Polyomaviruses | dsDNA | 40 (Wen et al., 2004) | Malignancies, cancer (skin, prostate, colorectal) (Ugo, 2018) | 3.9 × 105 GC/L | 4.51 × 103 GC/L | 1.93 | Greater Cairo, Egypt; activated sludge as secondary treatment process with 600,000 m3/day | Real time PCR | (Hamza and Hamza, 2018) |
| SARS-CoV | ssRNA | 80–120 | Respiratory disease, lung/liver/kidney injury, multiorgan dysfunction, shock, metabolic acidosis (Li et al., 2020) | NG | 2.4 × 103 copies/L | – | Japan; Conventional activated sludge process | RT-qPCR | (Haramoto et al., 2020) |
Notes for abbreviations: NG: not given, GC/L: genome copies/L, ssRNA: single-stranded RNA, ds RNA: double-stranded RNA, ssDNA: single-stranded DNA, dsDNA: double-stranded DNA, qPCR: quantitative polymerase chain reaction, RT-(q)PCR: reverse transcriptase-(quantitative) polymerase chain reaction.