Dissemination Of Antibiotic Resistance Via Wastewater And Surface Water

Abstract

Antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats society is facing around the globe and has been on the rise worldwide. While antibiotic resistances play crucial roles in shaping and coordinating microbial communities in natural environments, they can lead to disastrous results when acquired by pathogens in clinical environments. Effective antibiotics not only enable the functioning and interactions necessary for our highly globalized world, but also drive advances in healthcare and are the deciding factor facilitating life-saving medical intervention such as open-heart surgery, organ transplants and chemotherapy. Increasing resistance antibiotics is threatening the medical status quo, as well as social and economic stability (Chapter 1). Water environments, especially anthropogenically impacted environments such as wastewater treatment plants, are suspected to be - not only - reservoirs for antibiotic resistance genes but also hotspots for horizontal gene transfer. Knowledge about the impact of anthropogenically impacted aqueous environments is needed in order to be able to uncover the processes, parameters and mechanisms underlying and facilitating the transfer of antibiotic resistance genes in order to be able to implement practical, useful and efficient measures in order to reduce the spread of antibiotic resistance and to reduce anthropogenic impact of antibiotic and antibiotic resistance gene pollution in the environmen.