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Sewage contaminated water contains many viruses, over one hundred species are reported and can lead to diseases that affect human beings. For example, hepatitis, gastroenteritis, meningitis, fever, rash, and conjunctivitis can all be spread through contaminated water. More viruses are being discovered in water because of new detection and ...
In the last several weeks, wastewater surveillance at 59 of 190 U.S. municipal and regional sewage plants has revealed an out-of-season spike in influenza A flu viruses — a category that also ...
Wastewater-based epidemiology has been used to estimate illicit drug use in communities or populations, but can be used to measure the consumption of alcohol, caffeine, various pharmaceuticals and other compounds. [2] Wastewater-based epidemiology has also been adapted to measure the load of pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2 in a community. [3]
Waterborne diseases were once wrongly explained by the miasma theory, the theory that bad air causes the spread of diseases. [ 27 ] [ 28 ] However, people started to find a correlation between water quality and waterborne diseases, which led to different water purification methods, such as sand filtering and chlorinating their drinking water.
But wastewater surveillance — the testing of sewage for signs of pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2, poliovirus and mpox virus — has yet to be employed in the tracking of H5N1 bird flu virus.
In the treatment of sewage, systems composed of anaerobic ponds followed by facultative ponds usually have overall BOD removal efficiencies between 75 and 85%. Higher efficiencies are difficult to achieve because the effluent contains high concentrations of particulate organic matter, in the form of algae, naturally produced during treatment.
Human water-borne diseases usually come from other humans, thus human-derived materials (feces, medical waste, wash water, lawn chemicals, gasoline engines, garbage, etc.) should be kept far away from water sources. For example, human excreta should be buried well away (>60 meters/200 feet) from water sources to reduce contamination. [9]
The RBC process allows the wastewater to come in contact with a biological film in order to remove pollutants in the wastewater before discharge of the treated wastewater to the environment, usually a body of water (river, lake or ocean). A rotating biological contactor is a type of secondary (biological) treatment process.