THE use of antibiotics in individuals with Covid-19 may result in increased antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
This can involve bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics. The effects may be felt among the wider population and have toxic consequences for the environment.
Covid-19 has created major problems for social and healthcare systems worldwide, and the spread of AMR is one possible consequence.
Although antibiotics are not used to treat diseases caused by viruses, patients hospitalized due to the coronavirus infections may receive a combination of these medications to prevent secondary bacterial infections. This may have serious effects on AMR.
“Common with other hospitalized patients in the U.K. and other countries, the majority of our patients with Covid symptoms were prescribed antibiotics because it is very difficult to know whether a patient presenting with symptoms of Covid has an overlying bacterial infection or not.
The concern about resistance has led the World Health Organization (WHO) to discourage the use of antibiotics for mild cases of Covid-19, though they still recommend their use for people with severe Covid-19 who have a risk of secondary bacterial infections and death.
The present research revealed that the increased use of antibiotics during the pandemic may also be placing an added burden on wastewater treatment works.
The team noted that this could lead to raised levels of antibiotics within the U.K.’s rivers and coastal waters, which may in turn result in a rise in AMR.
This would be particularly serious in receiving waters of these works that serve large hospitals or emergency hospitals, where there are high concentrations of Covid-19 patients.
To perform a comprehensive environmental safety assessment that addresses potential risks to fish populations and related food webs, the researchers estimated the antibiotic loads entering the wastewater treatment works.
This involved analyzing patient numbers in emergency hospitals set up temporarily around the country and taking into account the associated treatment works’ capacity and available river water dilution for the emergency hospital and associated town.
The researchers employed environmental impact data from previous research and modeling tools developed by the U.K. water industry. For illustrative purposes, they focused on a single U.K. emergency hospital: Harrogate, which has a capacity of 500 beds.
