With of advent of next-generation sequencing for routine clinical
and environmental microbiology, there is renewed hope to
improve upon identifying novel and currently known, but nondetected,
physiological states of drinking water pathogens.
There is also intriguing new evidence that what were once
thought of as strictly enteric pathogens may contain members
with environmental amplification potential, ranging from human
enteric viruses [34•] to E. coli O157:H7 [23•], but for now
that is largely speculative. What is more concrete is the rising
health burden resulting from opportunistic pathogens via drinking
water [13], which are largely unregulated worldwide.