Insights from a Systematic Search for Information on Designs, Costs, and Effectiveness of Poliovirus Environmental Surveillance Systems
- 7 July 2017
- journal article
- review article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Food and Environmental Virology
- Vol. 9 (4), 361-382
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s12560-017-9314-4
Abstract
Poliovirus surveillance plays a critical role in achieving and certifying eradication and will play a key role in the polio endgame. Environmental surveillance can provide an opportunity to detect circulating polioviruses prior to the observation of any acute flaccid paralysis cases. We completed a systematic review of peer-reviewed publications on environmental surveillance for polio including the search terms “environmental surveillance” or “sewage,” and “polio,” “poliovirus,” or “poliomyelitis,” and compared characteristics of the resulting studies. The review included 146 studies representing 101 environmental surveillance activities from 48 countries published between 1975 and 2016. Studies reported taking samples from sewage treatment facilities, surface waters, and various other environmental sources, although they generally did not present sufficient details to thoroughly evaluate the sewage systems and catchment areas. When reported, catchment areas varied from 50 to over 7.3 million people (median of 500,000 for the 25% of activities that reported catchment areas, notably with 60% of the studies not reporting this information and 16% reporting insufficient information to estimate the catchment area population size). While numerous studies reported the ability of environmental surveillance to detect polioviruses in the absence of clinical cases, the review revealed very limited information about the costs and limited information to support quantitative population effectiveness of conducting environmental surveillance. This review motivates future studies to better characterize poliovirus environmental surveillance systems and the potential value of information that they may provide in the polio endgame.Keywords
Funding Information
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (5NU2RGH001913-02-00)
This publication has 138 references indexed in Scilit:
- Human enterovirus surveillance in the Slovak Republic from 2001 to 2011Epidemiology and Infection, 2013
- Detection of Imported Wild Polioviruses and of Vaccine-Derived Polioviruses by Environmental Surveillance in EgyptApplied and Environmental Microbiology, 2012
- Feasibility of Quantitative Environmental Surveillance in Poliovirus Eradication StrategiesApplied and Environmental Microbiology, 2012
- From Emergence to Eradication: The Epidemiology of Poliomyelitis DeconstructedAmerican Journal of Epidemiology, 2010
- New Electropositive Filter for Concentrating Enteroviruses and Noroviruses from Large Volumes of WaterApplied and Environmental Microbiology, 2009
- Environmental Poliovirus Surveillance during Oral Poliovirus Vaccine and Inactivated Poliovirus Vaccine Use in Córdoba Province, ArgentinaApplied and Environmental Microbiology, 2009
- Isolation of Sabin-Like Polioviruses from Wastewater in a Country Using Inactivated Polio VaccineApplied and Environmental Microbiology, 2008
- Retrospective Characterization of a Vaccine-Derived Poliovirus Type 1 Isolate from Sewage in GreeceApplied and Environmental Microbiology, 2007
- Advanced Environmental Surveillance and Molecular Analyses Indicate Separate Importations Rather than Endemic Circulation of Wild Type 1 Poliovirus in Gaza District in 2002Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 2007
- Failure to detect infection by oral polio vaccine virus following natural exposure among inactivated polio vaccine recipientsEpidemiology and Infection, 2007