Molecular epidemiological survey of rotaviruses in sewage by reverse transcriptase semitested PCR and restriction fragment length polymorphism assay

Southern blot hybridization combined with reverse transcription and polymerase chain reaction amplification of the VP7 gene was utilized to detect rotavirus contamination in raw sewage and treated effluent samples. Restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) of the amplification products indicated the presence of a variety of rotavirus dsRNAs belonging to human and animal rotavirus sequences. Furthermore, the treated effluent samples yielded ten different RFLPs of human and animal origin.