Municipal Wastewater as a Microbial Surveillance Platform for Enteric Diseases: A Case Study for Salmonella and Salmonellosis

Municipal wastewater (MW) contains a conglomeration of human enteric microbiota from a community and, hence, represents a potential surveillance tool for gastrointestinal infectious disease burden at the community level. To evaluate this, the concentration of Salmonella in MW samples from Honolulu,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental science & technology 2018-04, Vol.52 (8), p.4869-4877
Main Authors: Yan, T, O’Brien, P, Shelton, J. M, Whelen, A. C, Pagaling, E
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Case studies
Clinical isolates
Collection
Communities
Feasibility studies
Infectious diseases
Microbiota
Microorganisms
Municipal wastewater
Outbreaks
Public health
Salmonella
Salmonellosis
Serotypes
Surveillance
Waste materials
Wastewater
Water treatment
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Summary:Municipal wastewater (MW) contains a conglomeration of human enteric microbiota from a community and, hence, represents a potential surveillance tool for gastrointestinal infectious disease burden at the community level. To evaluate this, the concentration of Salmonella in MW samples from Honolulu, Hawaii, was monitored over a 54-week period, which showed positive and significant linear and rank correlation with clinical salmonellosis case numbers over the same period. Salmonella isolates were obtained from the MW samples and then compared with clinical isolates obtained by the Hawaii Department of Health State Laboratories over the same period. The MW isolate collection contained 34 serotypes, and the clinical isolate collection contained 47 serotypes, 21 of which were shared between the two isolate collections, including nine of the 12 most commonly detected clinical serotypes. Most notably, nine Salmonella strains, including one outbreak-associated Paratyphi B strain and eight other clinically rare strains, were shared and concurrently detected between the MW and the clinical isolate collections, indicating the feasibility of using enteric pathogens in the MW as a timely indication of community enteric disease activity.
ISSN:0013-936X
1520-5851
DOI:10.1021/acs.est.8b00163