Comparative assessment of the efficiency of virus sorption on a cartridge filter from water with fiberglass in comparison with the methods recommended by regulatory documents

Introduction. Drinking water is an important strategic resource. Monitoring for the epidemiological safety of water bodies for sanitary and virological indicators involves concentrating large volumes of water (from 10 to 100 liters). The need to study samples of such volume requires revision, modernization, and unification of sanitary and virological methods and, above all, optimization of concentration processes, modes and methods of sample preparation, to increase their efficiency and reduce the time from the moment of water sampling to the beginning of its study.

The aim of the study is to compare the efficiency of virus sorption using three different concentration methods: a cartridge with a glass fiber filter; an anion exchange resin; on a flow membrane filter module with tangential-radial movement of liquid with positively charged microfiltration polyamide membranes in microfiltration mode.

Materials and methods. Test virus – polio vaccine virus Sabin 1 in concentrations of 2, 3, and 4 lg TCID₅₀/10 l. Experimental reservoirs were prepared on the basis of dechlorinated tap water.

Results. All three methods of sample preparation are suitable for the qualitative determination of the polio virus in tap water at a concentration of 2 lg TCID₅₀/10 l and higher.

Limitations. The effectiveness of the three methods of concentrating viruses from water was assessed using a qualitative method. The study was conducted using model reservoirs created on the basis of tap water from the centralized water supply network of Moscow.

Conclusions. The method of concentrating viruses using the filtration method on a fiberglass cartridge filter for sample preparation can be recommended for use in conducting sanitary and virological research of water for the presence of pathogens of intestinal infections of a viral nature along with concentration methods using anion exchange resin; on a flow membrane filter module with tangential-radial fluid movement with positively charged microfiltration polyamide membranes in the microfiltration mode.

Compliance with ethical standards. The study does not require the submission of a biomedical ethics committee opinion or other documents.

Contribution:
Abramov I.A. – study concept and design, experiments, literature and experimental data analysis, visualization, writing, design and editing of the manuscript;
Nedachin A.E., Tymchuk S.N. – study concept and design, experiments, editing of the manuscript;
Karbovnicaya K.V. – experiments.
All authors are responsible for the integrity of all parts of the manuscript and approval of the manuscript final version.

Conflict of interest. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Funding. The study was conducted under the agreement 01-12/03-24 dated March 19, 2024 with CJSC ROSSA.

Received: February 13, 2025 / Revised: September 9, 2025 / Accepted: December 2, 2025 / Published: January 15, 2026

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