Wastewater treatment to fight the spread of antibiotic resistance
07 May, 2025
The need to tackle antibiotic resistance is becoming more urgent, posing threats to the health of all species, as antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) proliferate in the wider environment. Wastewater treatment plants are a key hotspot for the spread of antimicrobial resistance, because ARGs present in waste from humans can pass through the treatment process intact and disseminate into the environment.
“Solid waste, or sludge, is a byproduct of wastewater management that is regularly discharged into the environment after wastewater is treated,” says Julie Sanchez Medina, Ph.D. student at KAUST, who is supervised by faculty member Pei-Ying Hong. “However, sludge now contains considerable numbers of ARGs, and they are free to potentially move between species in the sludge, spreading antimicrobial resistance still further.”