How Do Viruses Get Into Tap Water?
Viruses get into tap water from human and animal feces.
The most common sources of viruses in drinking water are:
- Sewage overflows
- Sewage systems not working properly
- Leaky septic tanks
- Wastewater runoff
- Animal farming operations
- Polluted stormwater runoff
Are Waterborne Viruses a Big Concern?
When most people think about getting sick from bad drinking water, they think of bacteria.
However, viruses live in water too and can cause serious illness, including severe diarrhea and dehydration.
And that’s just one of many types of viruses in drinking water!
Although water utilities test for contaminants, it’s not usually cost effective to test specifically for infectious viruses.
That means it’s up to you to take the extra steps to keep your family safe, but more on that later…
Common Viruses In Drinking Water
- Enterovirus
- Rotavirus
- Norovirus
- Hepatitis A and E
- Astrovirus
- Adenovirus
Worst of all, many of them have extremely low infection doses.
In other words, exposure to just a small amount of the virus can cause an infection.
The most common symptoms of waterborne viruses are gastroenteritis, diarrhea, abdominal pain, vomiting and fever.
Severe cases can even lead to dangerous illnesses, like myocarditis, meningitis, and encephalitis.
Next, let’s take a closer look at the four most common types of viruses in tap water:
Non-polio enteroviruses cause roughly 10 to 15 million infections a year in the United States.
Worst of all, tens of thousands of these cases lead to hospitalizations.
- Fever
- Runny nose
- Sneezing
- Cough
- Skin rash
- Mouth blisters
- Body aches
Fortunately, though, most people only have mild symptoms that feel similar to a common cold.
Infants and children are more likely to catch enterovirus than adults.
In severe cases, enterovirus can cause more dangerous symptoms, like heart, spinal cord, and brain infections.
People who develop a heart infection may risk heart failure, and patients with brain inflammation risk paralysis.
In the United States, enterovirus infections are more common in the summer and fall, although you can catch it any time of year.
Hepatitis A is a liver infection caused by the hepatitis A virus (HAV).
HAV is very contagious and spreads through the stool and blood of infected people.
If someone ingests even microscopic amounts of the virus, they can catch it.
Luckily, HAV is preventable with a vaccine.
However, unvaccinated individuals can easily get infected from contaminated water or food.
- Fever
- Fatigue
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Abdominal pain
- Dark urine
- Diarrhea
- Joint pain
- Jaundice (yellow skin)
HAV can live outside of the body for months in contaminated food and water, even after cooking.
It takes temperatures over 185 degrees F to kill HAV.
Norovirus is one of the most common causes of vomiting and diarrhea due to contaminated food and water.
Although they occur all year long, outbreaks are more common from November to April.
- Stomach pain
- Vomiting
- Nausea
- Diarrhea
- Fever
- Body aches
- Headache
People usually develop symptoms within the first 12 to 48 hours and they can last up to three days.
Chronic vomiting and diarrhea can lead to severe hydration, especially in young children and older adults.
Each year, norovirus causes over 19 million cases of vomiting and diarrhea, including 465,000 emergency room visits.
Rotavirus used to be the leading cause of severe diarrhea cases in children before vaccines became available in 2006.
When children are infected, they can die from severe dehydration.
Common symptoms of rotavirus are:
- Vomiting
- Diarrhea
- Fever
- Abdominal pain
- Loss of appetite
Symptoms usually start two days after exposure and can last three to eight days.
Rotavirus is infectious at extremely low doses, which is one of the reasons why it spreads so easily.
This makes good hygiene, like handwashing, extremely important!
Aside from purifying your water, the best way to protect yourself from waterborne bacteria is to keep your hands clean.
Wash your hands before handling food and always wash after using the bathroom.
If soap and hot water are not available, use hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol.
How to Remove Viruses from Drinking Water
There’s a few different ways to show viruses who’s boss, including ultraviolet light and chemical disinfection.
Since viruses are so small, most filters can’t remove them (but a select few can).
Let’s take a closer look at how to kill and remove viruses from drinking water…
Disinfection with chlorine, oxide, and iodine has a high effectiveness in killing viruses.
If you have a private well, chlorine shock treatment is usually the best way to clean and disinfect it.
Keep in mind that water pH, cloudiness, and temperature all impact the effectiveness of chemical disinfection.
Contact a professional who knows how to add the correct amount of chlorine solution.
Boiling your water at a rolling boil for one minute is usually enough to kill most viruses.
At elevations above 6,500, however, you should boil for at least three minutes.
Boiling is a great way to make your water safe while you’re camping if you don’t have iodine tablets.
Ultraviolet light systems can kill viruses in water by destroying their DNA.
Whole-house UV systems can protect every tap in your house from dangerous pathogens.
Make sure your system includes effective prefilters to remove sediment and reduce cloudiness, otherwise the UV light won’t be able to penetrate and kill all the viruses.
Most filters are not effective at removing viruses from tap water.
Carbon filters, microfiltration, and ultrafiltration are all useless because their pores are too big, allowing viruses to slip through.
With that said, there is one type of filter with small enough pores to do the trick…
Reverse osmosis (RO) systems work by forcing highly pressurized water through a membrane with a pore size of 0.0001 microns.
This is the smallest pore size on the market, and it stops viruses dead in their tracks!
RO systems can remove up to 99.9% of parasites, bacteria, viruses, lead, arsenic, nitrate, pesticides, and nuclear waste.
Cloud Water Filters also use built-in software to monitor your water quality 24/7 through an app on your phone.
