Antibiotics and Antibiotic resistant bacteria in water and food-Tackling a real concern of humanity
On 10th April 2017, twoearly-stage researchersfromITN Marie Skłodowska-Curie ANSWER project (NikiforosAlygizakis and ĐorđeTadić) gave lecture to students of GymnáziumIvanaBellufor antibiotics in the environment, antibiotic resistance and wastewater reuse for irrigation. The event was organized by Director of the School Mgr. Dagmar Strmenova, the English teacher Mgr. Miriam Molotová and was supported from Environmental Institute, Dr Peter Oswald and Ing. Martina Oswaldova.
A short outline of the presentations can be found in the following lines.
Antibiotics are compounds that inhibit the growth of bacteria. Their name comes from the Greek words "anti" which means against and "bios" which means life. Antibiotics were firstly discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928 and until then havesaved countless human lives.Therefore, we could say that anti-biotics are chemicals against the life of bacteria.
However, this revolutionary success in medical treatment was hiding one flaw; Bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics! In other words, bacteria can develop new mechanisms to resist against antibiotics. For example, bacteria can communicate each other and share their “knowledge” how to deal with antibiotics. Consequently, antibiotics have no effect on bacteria which means that human life is under threat. The situationgradually deteriorates because the rate of discovering new antibiotics is lower than the rate of development of antibiotic resistance. This happens because of many reasons. Among them is that pharmaceutical companies aim to profit, which means that theyprefer drugs against chronic diseases that are taken from patients until the end of their lives rather that antibiotics that are taken for a short-term period.
But how antibiotics end up in water and food?Antibiotics are released from point and diffused sources. Diffused sources are activities like farming and point sources are the wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). For example, antibiotics are released in the environment byhospitals, veterinary clinics, medicated animal foods (i.e. fisheries, animals farm) andagriculture(use of manure as fertilizer, use of reclaimed (“purified“) wastewater for irrigation). WWTPs is the place, where “dirty”wastewaters are purified through complex procedure.The objective of the WWTP is to purify the wastewater and turn it into safe water, which is released in water bodies such as rivers and sea. However, current technologies of WWTP are not treating water so effectively. Residues of antibiotics end up in treated water.In some countries with water shortagethis water is used for irrigating crops. Some of the crops can uptake the antibiotics and this is how antibiotics end up in our plates.The mechanism of uptake through leaves and trough roots should be better understood, becausethere is concern that the antibiotics present in the vegetable can promote bacterial resistance.
For all the above reasons, stressing out the importance of this environmental issue, European Commission funded a project with the acronym "ANSWER", which is an Innovative Training Network Marie Skłodowska-Curie action. ANSWER, as revealed by its name, is going to provide answers for the water quality and scarcity, effectiveness of wastewater treatment and correct reuse practices of treated water in agriculture.
More information about ANSWER project can be found at in social Medias Facebook ( Twitter (