ArticlePLoS neglected tropical diseases2021
Impact of sampling depth on pathogen detection in pit latrines.
Article in PLoS neglected tropical diseases, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed.
- Machine learning-enabled wastewater-based surveillance for emerging pathogen detection and monitoring: current applications, challenges, and future prospects.Emerging microbes & infections · 2026Review
- Development, field-testing and optimization of tools to quantify soil-transmitted helminths in fecal sludge from school pit latrines in Ethiopia.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2026Article
- Possibilities and Limitations for Conducting Wastewater and Environmental Surveillance in Refugee Camps Worldwide.American journal of public health · 2026Article
- Wastewater-based surveillance of ESKAPE pathogens in resource-limited countries (RLCs): an essential tool for monitoring antibiotic resistance.Environmental monitoring and assessment · 2026Review
- Environmental pathogen surveillance in cities without universal piped wastewater infrastructure.PLOS global public health · 2026Article
- Enteric pathogens in soil adjacent to public waste bins in Maputo, Mozambique offers potential for environmental surveillance.PLOS global public health · 2026Article
- Wastewater concentrations of rotavirus RNA are associated with infection and vaccination metrics in the USA.Npj viruses · 2025Article
- Public Opinions from Malawian and Malawi Refugee Camp Residents of Wastewater and Environmental Surveillance.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2025Article
- Vibrio cholerae and Salmonella Typhi culture-based wastewater or non-sewered sanitation surveillance in a resource-limited region.Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology · 2024Article
- Microbiome science of human excrement composting.The ISME journal · 2024Review
- Simultaneous detection and quantification of multiple pathogen targets in wastewater.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2023Article
- Urban Onsite Sanitation Upgrades and Synanthropic Flies in Maputo, Mozambique: Effects on Enteric Pathogen Infection Risks.Environmental science & technology · 2023Article
- Higher helminth ova counts and incomplete decomposition in sand-enveloped latrine pits in a coastal sub-district of Bangladesh.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2022Article
- Wastewater, waste, and water-based epidemiology (WWW-BE): A novel hypothesis and decision-support tool to unravel COVID-19 in low-income settings?The Science of the total environment · 2022Review
- Analysis of pit latrine microbiota reveals depth-related variation in composition, and key parameters and taxa associated with latrine fill-up rate.Frontiers in microbiology · 2022Article
- Impact of an Urban Sanitation Intervention on Enteric Pathogen Detection in Soils.Environmental science & technology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Wastewater based epidemiology (WBE) is increasingly used to provide decision makers with actionable data about community health. WBE efforts to date have primarily focused on sewer-transported wastewater in high-income countries, but at least 1.8 billion people in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) use onsite sanitation systems such as pit latrines and septic tanks. Like wastewater, fecal sludges from such systems offer similar advantages in community pathogen monitoring and other epidemiological applications. To evaluate the distribution of enteric pathogens inside pit latrines-which could inform sampling methods for WBE in LMIC settings unserved by sewers-we collected fecal sludges from the surface, mid-point, and maximum-depth of 33 pit latrines in urban and peri-urban Malawi and analyzed the 99 samples for 20 common enteric pathogens via multiplex quantitative reverse transcription PCR. Using logistic regression adjusted for household population, latrine sharing, the presence of a concrete floor or slab, water source, and anal cleansing materials, we found no significant difference in the odds of detecting the 20 pathogens from the mid-point (adjusted odds ratio, aOR = 1.1; 95% confidence interval = 0.73, 1.6) and surface samples (aOR = 0.80, 95% CI = 0.54, 1.2) compared with those samples taken from the maximum depth. Our results suggest that, for the purposes of routine pathogen monitoring, pit latrine sampling depth does not strongly influence the odds of detecting enteric pathogens by molecular methods. A single sample from the pit latrines' surface, or a composite of surface samples, may be preferred as the most recent material contributed to the pit and may be easiest to collect.
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