Detection of Enterovirus D68 in Wastewater Samples from the UK between July and November 2021

Viruses

Ryan Mate¹  Martin Fritzsche¹  Alison Tedcastle²  Thomas Wilton²  Manasi Majumdar²  Dimitra Klapsa²  Elaine Pegg²  Erika Bujaki²  Javier Martin² 

[1] Division of Analytical and Biological Sciences, National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC), South Mimms, Potters Bar EN6 3QG, UK;Division of Virology, National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC), South Mimms, Potters Bar EN6 3QG, UK;

关键词: human enterovirus D68;    acute flaccid myelitis (AFM);    environmental surveillance;    wastewater;    next-generation sequencing (NGS);    direct detection;   

DOI  :  10.3390/v14010143

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Infection with enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) has been linked with severe neurological disease such as acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) in recent years. However, active surveillance for EV-D68 is lacking, which makes full assessment of this association difficult. Although a high number of EV-D68 infections were expected in 2020 based on the EV-D68′s known biannual circulation patterns, no apparent increase in EV-D68 detections or AFM cases was observed during 2020. We describe an upsurge of EV-D68 detections in wastewater samples from the United Kingdom between July and November 2021 mirroring the recently reported rise in EV-D68 detections in clinical samples from various European countries. We provide the first publicly available 2021 EV-D68 sequences showing co-circulation of EV-D68 strains from genetic clade D and sub-clade B3 as in previous years. Our results show the value of environmental surveillance (ES) for the early detection of circulating and clinically relevant human viruses. The use of a next-generation sequencing (NGS) approach helped us to estimate the prevalence of EV-D68 viruses among EV strains from other EV serotypes and to detect EV-D68 minor variants. The utility of ES at reducing gaps in virus surveillance for EV-D68 and the possible impact of nonpharmaceutical interventions introduced to control the COVID-19 pandemic on EV-D68 transmission dynamics are discussed.

【 授权许可】

Unknown