Continuous Circulation of Hepatitis E and A Viruses During COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdowns in Munich, Germany-Experience from Three Years of Wastewater Surveillance.

ABSTRACT: The COVID-19 pandemic has increased interest in wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) as a reliable and cost-effective framework for monitoring the spread of microbes. However, WBE frameworks have rarely been applied to the study of fecal-oral transmissible diseases, except for poliomyelitis. Here, we investigated the presence of hepatitis A virus (HAV) and hepatitis E virus (HEV) in wastewater in Munich. We collected wastewater samples between July 2020 and November 2023. A total of 186 samples were processed using centrifugation and analyzed for HAV- and HEV-RNA using RT-qPCR. As a reference, we used notification data from clinically or laboratory-diagnosed hepatitis A and E cases. Lockdown stringency levels were derived from official documentation. Our results show that 87.6% of wastewate

SUBMITTER: Javanmardi J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12566045 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature