Table 1.
Classification of water and wastewater viruses as well as virus abundance and removal efficiency in wastewater treatment plant (WWTP).
| Sample/Country | Treatment technology | Virus name | Gene | Virus abundance (i) genes copies/L (ii) Gene equivalents/L |
Log Removal Values |
Quantitative analysis method | References | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Influent | Effluent | LRVs | ||||||
| WWTP/Grid, Italy | Separation, primary sedimentation, secondary biological treatment and disinfection | Enteroviruses | s-s RNA | 3.3 × 107 (i) | 7.6 × 106 (i) | 0.63 | RT-PCR, Real-time qPCR | (La Rosa et al., 2010) |
| WWTP/Southern Arizona, USA |
Plant A: conventional activated sludge process Plant B: biological trickling filter process |
Pepper mild mottle virus | s-s RNA | 3.7–4.4 × 106/3.2–9.4 × 106 (i) |
4.6–6.3 × 105 (i) | 0.76–0.99/1.8 ±0.2 |
TaqMan-based qPCR | (Kitajima et al., 2014) |
| WWTP/Arizona, USA | Activated sludge and trickling filter |
Coxsackieviruses | – | 3.24 × 105 (i) | 1.54 × 103 (i) | 2.32 | RT-PCR | (Kitajima et al., 2015) |
| WWTP/France | Primary decantation and biological secondary treatment | Astroviruses | s-s RNA | – | 2.69 × 103 (i) | – | RT-qPCR | (Prevost et al., 2015) |
| WWTP/Kampala, Uganda | Conventional activated sludge method, in summer 2016 |
Hepatitis A virus | s-s RNA | 2.01 × 103–8.39 × 103 (i) |
1.93 × 103–8.70 × 103 (i) |
– | qPCR and quantitative RT-PCR |
(O'Brien et al., 2017) |
| Eastern Cape, South Africa | Activated sludge system with 40,000 m3/day flow rate | Rotaviruses | d-s RNA | 1.2 × 105 (i) | 2.6 × 104 (i) | 0.66 | Quantitative TaqMan real-time PCR |
(Osuolale and Okoh, 2017) |
| WWTP/North Wales, UK | With filter beds for secondary treatment and serves ca. 4000 inhabitants | Norovirus Genotypes GI/GII |
s-s RNA | 8.8 × 104 (i) | 3 × 104 (i) | 0.47 | RT-qPCR | (Farkas et al., 2018) |
| WWTP/Greater Cairo, Egypt | Activated sludge as secondary treatment process with 600,000 m3/day | Polyomaviruses | d-s DNA | 3.9 × 105 (i) | 4.51 × 103 (i) | 1.93 | Real time PCR | (Hamza and Hamza, 2018) |
| Sample/Country | Treatment technology | Virus name | Gene | Virus abundance (i) genes copies/L (ii) Gene equivalents/L |
Log Removal Values |
Quantitative analysis method | References | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Influent | Effluent | LRVs | ||||||
| WWTP Egypt |
330,000 m3/day capacity | Adenoviruses | d-s DNA | 4.3 × 105–8.7 × 106 (i) | 1.22 × 104–3.7 × 106 (i) |
– | Real time PCR | Elmahdy et al. (2019) |
| WWTP Japan |
Conventional activated sludge process | SARS-CoV-2 | s-s RNA | – | 2.4 × 103 (i) | – | RT-qPCR | Haramoto et al. (2018) |
| WWTP/P. Alegre, Brazil | An anaerobic stage by the UASB reactor and an aerobic stage through the Unitank® System. | SARS-CoV-2 | s-s RNA | 4.14 × 101–5.23 × 103 (i) | – | – | RT-qPCR | Zaneti et al. (2021) |
| WWTP/Murica, Spain | Untreated wastewater samples | SARS-CoV-2 | 5.4 ± 0.2 log10 (i) | – | – | RT-qPCR | Zaneti et al. (2021) | |
| Raw WWTP/Paris/France | Several major wastewater treatment plants | SARS-CoV-2 | s-s RNA | 3–50 × 103 (ii) | – | – | RT-qPCR | Wurtzer et al. (2020) |
| Raw wastewaters/Germany | Untreated sewage and treated water by ozonation samples | SARS-CoV-2 | Solid phase 25 (i) Aqueous phase 1.8 (i) |
Solid phase 13 (ii) Aqueous phase 8.8 (ii) |
– | RT-qPCR | Westhaus et al. (2021) | |
Abbreviations: qPCR: Quantitative polymerase chain reaction, RT-(q)PCR: Reverse Transcriptase-(Quantitative) polymerase chain reaction, ICC-qPCR: Integrated cell culture with quantitative polymerase chain reaction.