Occurence and survival of viruses in composted human feaces
Preface
The Danish Environmental Protection Agency (Miljøstyrelsen) has recently developed a number of projects on recycling of faeces and urine of human origin. Particular attention has been given to the environmental and public health aspects concerning the fate of bacteria and parasites during the process of recycling. However, little is known about the occurrence and survival of viruses in composted human faeces. The available data are scattered over the literature and often published in books, journals and reports covering different areas and targeted at different readers (e.g. virologists, engineers and physicians).
The present works summarizes the existing knowledge on the occurrence of pathogenic viruses in human faeces and their survival in compost products derived from faeces, sewage sludge and other organic waste. The review is composed by three chapters: the first two chapters are introductory chapters describing the process of composting (chapter 1) and relevant biological, clinical and epidemiological aspects on viruses excreted in human faeces (chapter 2). Chapter 3 describes the survival of viruses during storage, production and utilization of composted organic waste.
In the preparation of this report, the authors have brought together data from books, journals and reports covering different areas and disciplines (i.e. microbiology, compost technology and human health), including grey literature and unpublished material available on the Internet. The selected literature was primarily identified using the ISI Web of Science (http://wos.isiglobalnet.com), a database covering over 16,000 international journals, books and proceedings. Additional references were identified through reading of the selected literature and subsequent search on cited authors. Internet search engines were used to obtain relevant information from the web.
Due to the scarcity of literature on survival of viruses during composting of human faeces and the similarity to virus survival during composting of other types of organic waste, the search was extended to obtain information on composting of sewage sludge, liquid organic waste and domestic solid waste. Studies on virus survival during composting of manure or animal carcasses were also included as certain animal viruses are closely related human viruses.
The members of the project steering group were:
 | Linda Bagge, Miljøstyrelsen. |
| Line W. Hollesen, Miljøstyrelsen |
| Anders Dalsgaard, Department of Veterinary Microbiology, The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University. |
| Representative from Sundhedsstyrelsen |
| Representative from Fødevaredirektoratet |
We thank Dr. Peter Henrik Andersen (Department of Epidemiology, Statens Serum Institut) and Dr. Francois-Xavier Hanon (Department of Epidemiology Research, Statens Serum Institut) for providing us with data on the occurrence of enteric viruses in Denmark.