Abstract

Objective: To assess the prevalence of enteric viruses in the final effluents of two peri-urban wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in Amathole District Municipality in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa from September 2012 to August 2013. Methods: Water samples were collected monthly from the final effluents of the selected WWTPs (WWTP-K and WWTP-R) located in Komga and East London, respectively in Amathole District Municipality for a period of 12 months between September 2012 and August 2013. RTPCR was used for the detection of adenoviruses (AdV), rotaviruses and hepatitis A virus while conventional PCR was used to delineate all detected viruses into their serotypes using specific primer sets. Results: None of the viruses were detected in samples from WWTP-R. In effluent samples from WWTP-K, rotaviruses were detected in 58% (7/12) of the samples in concentrations ranging from 1.7 × 104 to 2.3 × 106 genome copies/L while AdV and hepatitis A virus were detected in 17% (2/12) of the samples in concentrations ranging from 4.5 × 10 to 2.8 × 102 and 2.3 × 10 to 7.1 × 10 genome copies/L, respectively. Molecular characterization of AdV positive samples showed the presence of species B, species C and species F (AdV41) from the May and June 2013 samples. Conclusions: Detection of enteric viruses in final effluents reflects the inability of WWTPs to completely remove viruses from final effluents and the likelihood of contaminating receiving watersheds with potentially virulent viral particles, which may pose a serious health risk to people directly utilizing such water either for consumption or full contact purposes.

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