Basel Wastewater

Basel Wastewater pilot project is an initiative to conducting a retrospective wastewater sequencing project using samples collected twice weekly from Basel-Stadt between July 2021 and July 2024, totaling 312 samples. Leveraging a newly developed protocol, we aim to detect and sequence the VP1 region of Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) and other enteroviruses directly from these wastewater samples.

This project seeks to enhance our understanding of enterovirus circulation in the community, particularly during periods when no clinical cases are reported. We are especially interested in identifying whether enteroviruses—especially EV-D68—circulate outside of recognized outbreaks, and whether their genetic diversity in wastewater aligns with or differs from that of contemporaneously sampled clinical viruses in Switzerland and beyond. The project is a collaboration with Karoline Leuzinger and Rainer Gosert (Clinical Virology, University Hospital Basel) and Claudia Bagutti (Basel-Stadt Cantonal Laboratory).