Scientists Need to Use Wastewater to Find Drug-Resistant Bacteria

People often think of wastewater as serving no purpose. But it can be a valuable source of information. Wastewater is increasingly recognised as a significant environmental reservoir for antimicrobial resistance - a growing global public health threat, writes Akebe Luther King Abia, Afsatou Ndama Traore, and Natasha Potgieter for The Conversation.

In their research, they looked at studies done on wastewater in African countries between 2012 and 2022. They wanted to identify the challenges in using wastewater surveillance to determine the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance. They found that using wastewater to study antimicrobial resistance was increasing on the continent.

Most of the research was done in South Africa. That's largely because most sub-Saharan countries simply do not have enough wastewater treatment plants. Many countries treat less than 5% of the wastewater they generate. Only a few countries, among them South Africa and neighbouring Botswana, treat 25% to 50% of their wastewater. This means there is more to be learned from these countries.

Antimicrobial resistance is expected to kill over 10 million people annually by 2050 if nothing is done to stop it. In sub-Saharan Africa, 23.5 deaths out of every 100,000 are attributed to diseases such as lower respiratory, chest, bloodstream and intra-abdominal infection caused by antimicrobial-resistant organisms.