Rotavirus survival in conventionally treated drinking water

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Abstract
Samples of conventionally treated drinking water collected either as effluent (PE) at a treatment plant or out of a tap (TW) in our laboratory were seeded with simian rotavirus SA-11, which closely resembles rotavirus of human origin. The virus, grown in MA-104 cells, was suspended either in distilled water, Earle's balanced salt solution (EBSS), or tryptose phosphate broth (TPB), and added to the water samples to a final concentration of 5.7 × 103 plaque-forming units (PFU) per millilitre. After a contact time of 1 h at 22 °C, the samples were diluted and plaque assayed. There was no significant reduction in the virus titre in samples of TW (10 loss in the titre of the virus when it was suspended in distilled water before the contamination of PE. To study the long-term survival of the rotavirus in TW, the inoculated samples (5.0 × 104 PFU/mL) were held at either 4 or 20 °C in the dark and tested over a period of 64 days. At 20 °C it took 64 days to reduce the virus titre by 2 log10, whereas at 4 °C the virus titre dropped only 0.7 log10 during the same period. Rotaviruses could, therefore, survive well enough in conventionally treated drinking water to make it a possible vehicle for their transmission.