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Wastewater-Based Epidemiology (WBE): An Emerging Nexus Between Environment and Human Health

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Biotechnological Innovations for Environmental Bioremediation

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Abstract

Water, an integral component of life on earth, is being hampered or exploited to a great extent owing to both natural and anthropogenic activities. The overexploitation of water resulting in the rise in the generation of wastewater not only results in water scarcity but also results in water pollution across. This creates an avenue to focus on technologies to deal with wastewater. Numerous wastewater treatment technologies exist, having the potential to treat wastewater and convert into useful resource. These wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) serve as reservoirs of providing information on water and environmental health, as well as treat contaminants, especially numerous disease-causing pathogens. The applicability of wastewater as a diagnostic tool referred to as wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE), began in late 1990s when the presence of illicit drugs was detected and correlated with the drug consumption in the associated community. Since then, the technology has been exploited for various purposes such as poliovirus in 2003 and SARS-CoV-2 detection as the recent one. Meanwhile, antimicrobial resistance has been on the rise owing to uncontrolled and unregulated use of antibiotics, especially from environmental sources such as soil, water, and WWTPs. In this line, a pool of 6 Gram-positive and Gram-negative microorganisms referred to as “ESKAPE” have been identified as global priority pathogens by WHO and special emphasis has been given to understanding and control of emerging drug resistance toward them. This chapter therefore focuses on the applicability of WBE in the detection and diagnosis of these pathogens in wastewater. Also, the chapter briefly describes the molecular methods and tools employed for the detection of these resistant microorganisms in the wastewater samples, along with current national and international status of ESKAPE pathogens.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dr. B. Lal Institute of Biotechnology, Jaipur, India

    Aakanksha Kalra, Akansha Mathur & Sudipti Arora

  2. Centre for Innovation, Research & Development (CIRD), Dr. B. Lal Clinical Laboratory Pvt. Ltd., Jaipur, India

    Tamanna Pamnani

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  1. Aakanksha Kalra
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  2. Akansha Mathur
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biotechnology, Dr. B. Lal Institute of Biotechnology, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India

    Sudipti Arora

  2. Department of Botany, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India

    Ashwani Kumar

  3. Department of Local Resources and Department of Life Sciences, Prefectural University of Hiroshima, Hiroshima, Japan

    Shinjiro Ogita

  4. Department of Natural Sciences, Northeastern State University, Broken Arrow, OK, USA

    Yuan -Yeu Yau

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Kalra, A., Mathur, A., Pamnani, T., Arora, S. (2022). Wastewater-Based Epidemiology (WBE): An Emerging Nexus Between Environment and Human Health. In: Arora, S., Kumar, A., Ogita, S., Yau, Y.Y. (eds) Biotechnological Innovations for Environmental Bioremediation. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-9001-3_29

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