Low occurrence of Hepatitis A virus in water samples from an urban area of Southern Brazil

ABSTRACT Hepatitis A virus (HAV), a member of Picornaviridae family, is the main causative agent of acute viral hepatitis in the world, mainly in developing countries. HAV may be present in contaminated water and food and its presence is often associated to a lesser extent with socioeconomic factors...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo
Main Authors: Fernanda Gil de Souza, Francini Pereira da Silva, Rodrigo Staggemeier, Caroline Rigotto, Fernando Rosado Spilki
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Universidade de São Paulo (USP) 2018
Subjects:
HAV
Stream
ICC-PCR
RT-PCR
Hepatitis
Nested-RT-PCR
Enteric virus
Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine
RC955-962
Infectious and parasitic diseases
RC109-216
Arctic
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1590/s1678-9946201860069
https://doaj.org/article/b4a656c9b73e4275b5d5c06a1c72769e
Description
Summary:ABSTRACT Hepatitis A virus (HAV), a member of Picornaviridae family, is the main causative agent of acute viral hepatitis in the world, mainly in developing countries. HAV may be present in contaminated water and food and its presence is often associated to a lesser extent with socioeconomic factors and environmental quality. The main goals in the present study were to standardize a cell culture combined to a polymerase chain reaction protocol for the detection and quantification of viral viability and analyze whether the virus could be found in water samples collected in four urban streams of Sinos River watershed. Virus recovery was assayed from known virus concentrations measured in experimentally contaminated raw and ultrapure water (MilliQ®). Recovery rates ranged from 270% in raw water to 15,000% in ultrapure water. In a second step, a qPCR coupled to a previous passage in cells, demonstrated more analytical sensitivity when compared to samples assayed without a previous passage in cell cultures. HAV genome was detected in only 1 of 84 samples analyzed, pointing to a very low occurrence of HAV in water samples in the studied region. These findings are remarkable, since no more than 5% of the domestic sewage in this area is treated pointing to a low occurrence of HAV in the population living nearby during the study period.

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