Effects of chlorine and chlorine dioxide on human rotavirus infectivity and genome stability

• The disinfection efficacy of ClO2 is higher than that of chlorine for HRV.
• The current chlorine treatment strategy is inadequate to manage the risk of waterborne HRV transmission.
• Damage to the 1227–2354 bp of the VP4 gene is associated with the disappearance of HRV infectivity by chlorine.
• No complete accordance between the loss in infectivity and genome damage is observed after treatment of HRV with ClO2.

Despite the health risks posed by waterborne human rotavirus (HRV), little information is available concerning the effectiveness of chlorine or chlorine dioxide (ClO2), two common disinfectants of public water sources, against HRV and their effects on its genome remain poorly understood. This study investigated the effects of chlorine and ClO2 on purified HRV by using cell culture and RT-PCR to assess virus infectivity and genetic integrity, respectively. The disinfection efficacy of ClO2 was found to be higher than that of chlorine. According to the efficiency factor Hom model, Ct value (mg/L min) ranges required for a 4-log reduction of HRV at 20 °C by chlorine and ClO2 were 5.55–5.59 and 1.21–2.47 mg/L min, respectively. Detection of the 11 HRV genome segments revealed that damage to the 1227–2354 bp of the VP4 gene was associated with the disappearance of viral infectivity by chlorine. However, no complete accordance between culturing and RT-PCR assays was observed after treatment of HRV with ClO2. These results collectively indicate that the current practice of chlorine disinfection may be inadequate to manage the risk of waterborne HRV infection, and offer the potential to monitor the infectivity of HRV adapting PCR-based protocols in chlorine disinfection.

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