Washington DC [US], May 13: A new study highlights the global issue of antibiotic pollution in rivers, warning that millions of kilometers of rivers worldwide are carrying antibiotic contamination at levels high enough to foster drug resistance and harm aquatic life.
The research, published in PNAS Nexus, is the first to estimate the scale of global river contamination from human antibiotics use. The study estimates that around 8,500 tons of antibiotics — nearly one-third of the amount people consume annually — end up in river systems around the world each year, even after passing through wastewater treatment systems.
While the residues from individual antibiotics are often in small concentrations, the chronic and cumulative exposure to these substances poses risks to both human health and aquatic ecosystems. According to Heloisa Ehalt Macedo, lead author of the study and a post-doctoral fellow in geography at McGill University, “the chronic and cumulative environmental exposure to these substances can still pose a risk.”
The research team utilized a global model validated by field data from nearly 900 river locations. They found that amoxicillin, the most widely used antibiotic globally, is the most likely to reach risky levels, particularly in Southeast Asia, where increasing usage and limited wastewater treatment exacerbate the issue.
While the study emphasizes the essential role antibiotics play in global health, co-author Bernhard Lehner, a professor of global hydrology at McGill University, pointed out that the unintended environmental effects, including the growth of antibiotic resistance, need mitigation strategies to protect both the environment and public health.
Notably, the study only considered antibiotics from human consumption and did not account for contributions from livestock or pharmaceutical factories, both of which are significant sources of environmental contamination. Co-author Jim Nicell, a professor of environmental engineering at McGill, stressed the need for monitoring programs to detect antibiotic contamination in waterways, particularly in regions predicted to be at higher risk.
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