Long-Term Dynamics of Enterovirus Contamination of Water Environment in the Russian Federation

Introduction: The incidence of enterovirus infections in the Russian Federation has been increasing recently. Effective detection of enteric viruses in water from various sources as a risk factor for disease transmission is important for its control.

 Objective: To study Enterovirus contamination of water environment as a risk factor for enteric diseases.

 Materials and methods: In 2014–2023, institutions of the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing (Rospotrebnadzor) collected 295,630 water samples from centralized and decentralized water supply systems, surface water sources, and wastewater. The samples were tested for enteric viruses using the culture method and nucleic acid amplification. The results were statistically analyzed using the R software.

Results: We observed a statistically significant trend toward a decrease in the Enterovirus contamination rate of surface water bodies (r = –0.86, p = 0.002) and wastewater (r = –0,91, p < 0,001). A univariate linear regression analysis did not reveal a statistical effect of such factors as contamination of centralized water supply, decentralized water supply, surface water sources, and wastewater on the incidence of enteric infections.

 Conclusions: The decrease in the level of drinking water contamination with enteroviruses demonstrates the effectiveness of preventive measures taken in the Russian Federation as part of the enteric disease surveillance and the relevance of further studies of infectious disease rates and continuous monitoring of biosafety of various water bodies.

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