Environmental Effects Of Antibiotic Resistance In Pathogens Found In Water Systems

Environmental Effects of Antibiotic Resistance in Pathogens Found in Water Systems
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Environmental Effects of Antibiotic Resistance in Pathogens Found in Water Systems
Introduction
Antibiotics are extensively used to treat bacterial infections in human beings and livestock. In addition to their use in aquaculture, antibiotics are also very useful in accelerating the growth of livestock. The challenge with antibiotics is that the patient metabolizes only a small proportion of the drug and most of the drug content is discharged as a waste. The waste is released into sewage systems in the hospitals or even released directly in the water bodies when used at home. Animal feces and antibiotic contamination finds its way into sewerage treatment plants and eventually into the water. As a result of increased environmental pollution, antibiotic resistance in urban aquatic environments has continued to increase leaving devastating effects on the environment, human beings, and animals. Tracking and tackling antibiotic contamination is critical in determining the sources and solutions of antibiotic resistance and reducing contamination in aquatic ecosystems.
High concentrations of antibiotic chemicals are used in fish farms contributing significantly to the contaminations of water systems. Additionally, antibiotics such as streptomycin are utilized mainly in fruit farming where they are sprayed directly into the environment, and may enter the watershed after rain events (Kummerer, 2004). Other uses of antibiotics are in the food industry, bee-keeping, glue industries, and many others. That implies that there is a high potential for the antibiotics to be released into the environment (Ju et al., 2016). When these antibiotics are disposed into water bodies such as rivers and ponds, it becomes a threat to the environment. Antibiotics released into the environment pose a danger to living organisms when pathogens become resistant to the drug component found in the antibiotics.
How Pathogens in Water Systems Become Resistant to Antibiotics
Significant traces of antibiotic-resistant DNA have been found in the products of sewage and wastewater treatment. The antibiotic residues usually get reintroduced into the environment through water supply and wastewater treatment plants furthering the spread of the antibiotics resistance. Researchers and scholars have devoted their time to studying the development and spread of potentially harmful microbial genes, including antibiotic resistance, in the wastewater treatment plants and processes (Wellington et al., 2013). The studies have indicated that even a low concentrations of antibiotics lead to resistance of a wide spectrum of antibiotics. Most of the antibiotics we consume are metabolized in our bodies (Nnadozie, Kumari & Bux, 2017). However, some of the antibiotic components are excreted to the environment after which they are then ferried to the wastewater treatment plants. In the treatment plants, the wastewater is treated using a membrane bioreactor. The treatment method uses both biological methods and filtration processes.
For the biological treatment process, the plant uses microscopic bacteria to destroy the pathogens in the w...