One in four of the world’s rivers are polluted with potentially toxic levels of pharma compounds, according to a new study.
The findings point to a “threat to environmental and global health,” say the scientists, who found that paracetamol, antibiotics epilepsy drug carbamazepine, metformin for diabetes and other compounds like caffeine and nicotine were found in samples from around the world including in Antarctica.
It’s not the first time that pharma ingredients have been found in the world’s waterways, but is the largest and most comprehensive assessment of pharmaceutical pollution to date, according to the international research team that spanned 86 academic groups.
The Global Monitoring of Pharmaceuticals Project looked at 1,052 sampling sites along 258 rivers in 104 countries of all continents, providing a “pharmaceutical fingerprint” for amore than 470 million people worldwide.
It was found that South America, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia had the highest levels. This is because these areas have low-to-moderate income countries that have poor wastewater management and rubbish dumping along rivers banks.
Rivers from Pakistan, India and Bolivia, Nigeria, as well as waterways in Norway, Iceland, Norway, and the Amazon were some of the most polluted. The European sample tops the list was Madrid, Spain.
26% of river samples contained levels of at least one active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) that were higher than what would be considered safe for aquatic organisms, or encourage antimicrobial resistance.
“We’ve known for over two decades now that pharmaceuticals make their way into the aquatic environment where they may affect the biology of living organisms,” said project co-leader John Wilkinson of the University of York in the UK, where the samples were analysed.
“One of the largest problems we have faced in tackling this issue is that we have not been very representative when monitoring these contaminants, with almost all of the data focused on a select few areas in North America, Western Europe and China.”
The researchers believe that increasing monitoring of pharmaceuticals in environmental settings will allow them to develop strategies to limit potential pollutants’ effects.
The project will be expanded to include soils, sediments, pants, and animals in the future. This will allow for the development of global databases on pharmacological pollution.
The research is PublishedThe Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.
