Enlarge / Transmission electron micrograph of poliovirus type 1. (credit: Getty | BSIP)

An eradicated form of wild polio surfaced in routine wastewater monitoring in the Netherlands last year, offering a cautionary tale on the importance of monitoring for the tenacious virus, researchers report this week in the journal Eurosurveilance.

The sewage sample came up positive for infectious poliovirus in mid-November and genome sequencing revealed a strain of wild poliovirus type 3, which was declared globally eradicated in 2019. Its potential revival would be a devastating setback in the decades-long effort to stamp out highly infectious and potentially paralytic germ for good.

For brief background, there are three types of wild polioviruses: type 2 and type 3 have been eradicated, with the former being knocked out in 2015. Wild poliovirus type 1 continues to circulate in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There are also occasional vaccine-derived polioviruses that circulate in communities with low vaccination rates, which recently occurred in New York.

Enlarge / A bathroom on an Airbus A321neo. (credit: Getty | Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto)

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering blending sewage sampling from airplanes into its wastewater surveillance system, which has proven useful for monitoring the spread and prevalence of a variety of pathogens, particularly SARS-CoV-2.

Amid the pandemic, the CDC launched wastewater testing programs across the nation, trying to get ahead of SARS-CoV-2 surges. Viral particles are often shed in fecal matter and can be an early indication of an infection. The fecal focus has proven useful for sniffing out community-wide transmission trends and disease spread for not only COVID-19 but also other recent outbreaks as well, namely polio and mpox (formerly monkeypox). Adding surveillance from airplanes and airports could flush out yet more information about infectious disease spread, such as global travel patterns and the debut of novel viral variants.

A study published last week in PLOS Global Public Health found such sewage surveillance in UK airport terminals and airplanes was effective at tracking SARS-CoV-2 among international travelers. Overall, the surveillance data suggested that it is a "useful tool for monitoring the global transfer rate of human pathogens and other disease-causing agents across international borders and should form part of wider international efforts to monitor and contain the spread of future disease outbreaks," the authors, led by Kata Farkas of Bangor University, concluded.