Professor publishes study on detection of human noroviruses
Coastal water is subjected to contamination with a wide range of pathogenic microorganisms, which presents a major health risk to recreational water users. The current use of fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) as an indicator for water quality monitoring has its limitations for swimmer protection. These fecal bacteria are known to persist and grow in the environments, which bias assessment, especially in tropical regions like Hawaii. While there is a lack direct link between FIB and human diseases since FIB are not human pathogens, enteric viruses are being considered as an alternative indicator because they are the main cause of water-borne gastroenteritis and they are free of environmental multiplication. However, the nature of extremely low copy number of enteric viral pathogens in water has been a challenging factor for their use as a valid bioindicator.
