Municipal wastewater surveillance reveals high community disease burden of rarely reported and possibly subclinical Salmonella Derby strain.

This study demonstrates wastewater's capability to provide community infectious disease information - such as background infection rates of subclinical enteric illness - which is otherwise inaccessible through clinical approaches.IMPORTANCE Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has been conventionally used to analyze community health via the detection of chemicals, such as legal and illicit drugs; however, municipal wastewater contains microbiological determinants of health and disease as well, including enteric pathogens. Here, we demonstrate that WBE can be used to examine subclinical community salmonellosis patterns. Derby was the most abundant Salmonella serovar detected in Hawaii wastewater over a year-long sampling study, with few corresponding clinical cases. Comparative genomics analyses indicate that the normally rare strain of S. Derby found in wastewater has a unique combination of genes which allow it to persist as a subclinical infection without producing symptoms of severe gastroenteritis. This study shows that WBE can be used to explore trends in community infectious disease patterns which may not be reflected in clinical monitoring, shedding light on overall enteric disease burden and rates of asymptomatic cases. PMID: 32591375 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Applied and Environmental Microbiology - Category: Microbiology Authors: Tags: Appl Environ Microbiol Source Type: research