Can Ebola Virus disease be transmitted in sewage/contaminated water?
What is the life of Ebola virus in ground or surface water please? What is the infective dose?
2 Answers
There is one research paper that has indicated that the Ebola virus can live in wastewater for up to 30 days. At a recent meeting at UNC Water & Health, the consensus during the expert panel would be to use a 7-day period for considering wastewater infectious. There is thought that adding lime to the waste will raise the pH to kill the Ebola virus. It is not recommended to add chlorine, as the chlorine demand of the waste will exert too much demand to consider the chlorine effective. People treating the waste should be in PPE. I do not know the infectious dose.
Comments
Could you please provide a link to the research paper and the consensus reached by the panel? Thanks.
Yes - send me an email at daniele.lantagne@tufts.edu and I will send it on to you.
An infectious dose of 1-10 organisms is given for viral hemorrhagic fevers by Franz et al. 1997 (https://www.montana.edu/wwwrjf/bioterr...), as quoted in the Public Health Agency of Canada's Ebolavirus pathogen safety data sheet (https://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/lab-bio/re...).
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