TY  - JOUR
TI  - Pharmaceutical pollution of the world’s rivers
AU  - John L. Wilkinson
AU  - Alistair B.A. Boxall
AU  - Dana W. Kolpin
AU  - Kmy Leung
AU  - Racliffe Weng Seng Lai
AU  - Cristóbal Galbán‐Malagón
AU  - Aiko D. Adell
AU  - Julie Mondon
AU  - Marc Métian
AU  - Rob Marchant
AU  - Alejandra Bouzas‐Monroy
AU  - Aida Cuní‐Sanchez
AU  - Anja Coors
AU  - Pedro Carriquiriborde
AU  - Macarena Rojo
AU  - Christopher Gordon
AU  - Magdalena Cara
AU  - Monique Moermond
AU  - Thais Luarte
AU  - Vahagn Petrosyan
AU  - Yekaterina Perikhanyan
AU  - Clare S. Mahon
AU  - Christopher J. McGurk
AU  - Thilo Hofmann
AU  - Tapos Kormoker
AU  - Volga Iñiguez
AU  - Jessica Guzman-Otazo
AU  - Jean Leite Tavares
AU  - Francisco Gildasio De Figueiredo
AU  - María Tereza Pepe Razzolini
AU  - Victorien Dougnon
AU  - Gildas Gbaguidi
AU  - Oumar Traoré
AU  - Jules M. Blais
AU  - Linda E. Kimpe
AU  - Michelle Wong
AU  - Donald Wong
AU  - Romaric Ntchantcho
AU  - Jaime Pizarro
AU  - Guang‐Guo Ying
AU  - Chang-Er Chen
AU  - Martha Isabel Páez-Melo
AU  - Jina Martínez-Lara
AU  - Jean‐Paul Otamonga
AU  - John Poté
AU  - Suspense A. Ifo
AU  - Penelope Wilson
AU  - Silvia Echeverría-Sáenz
AU  - Nikolina Udiković‐Kolić
AU  - Milena Milaković
AU  - Despo Fatta‐Kassinos
AU  - Lida Ioannou‐Ttofa
AU  - Vladimíra Belušová
AU  - Jan Vymazal
AU  - María Cárdenas-Bustamante
AU  - Bayable A. Kassa
AU  - Jeanne Garric
AU  - Arnaud Chaumot
AU  - Peter Gibba
AU  - Ilia Kunchulia
AU  - Sven Seidensticker
AU  - Gérasimos Lyberatos
AU  - Halldór Pálmar Halldórsson
AU  - Molly Melling
AU  - Shashidhar Thatikonda
AU  - Manisha Lamba
AU  - Anindrya Nastiti
AU  - Adee Supriatin
AU  - Nima Pourang
AU  - Ali Abedini
AU  - Omar Abdullah
AU  - Salem Gharbia
AU  - Francesco Pilla
AU  - Benny Chefetz
AU  - Tom Topaz
AU  - Koffi Marcellin Yao
AU  - Bakhyt Aubakirova
AU  - Raikhan Beisenova
AU  - Lydia Olaka
AU  - Jemimah K. Mulu
AU  - Peter Chatanga
AU  - Victor Ntuli
AU  - Nathaniel T. Blama
AU  - Sheck Sherif
AU  - Ahmad Zaharin Aris
AU  - Ley Juen Looi
AU  - Mahamoudane Niang
AU  - Seydou T. Traore
AU  - Rik Oldenkamp
AU  - Olatayo Michael Adetayo Ogunbanwo
AU  - Muhammad Ashfaq
AU  - Muhammad Iqbal
AU  - Ziad Abdeen
AU  - Aaron O’Dea
AU  - Jorge Manuel Morales‐Saldaña
AU  - María Custodio
AU  - Heidi De la Cruz
AU  - Ian A. Navarrete
AU  - Fábio Carvalho
AU  - Alhaji Brima Gogra
PY  - 2022
JO  - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
DO  - 10.1073/pnas.2113947119
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2113947119
AB  - Environmental exposure to active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) can have negative effects on the health of ecosystems and humans. While numerous studies have monitored APIs in rivers, these employ different analytical methods, measure different APIs, and have ignored many of the countries of the world. This makes it difficult to quantify the scale of the problem from a global perspective. Furthermore, comparison of the existing data, generated for different studies/regions/continents, is challenging due to the vast differences between the analytical methodologies employed. Here, we present a global-scale study of API pollution in 258 of the world's rivers, representing the environmental influence of 471.4 million people across 137 geographic regions. Samples were obtained from 1,052 locations in 104 countries (representing all continents and 36 countries not previously studied for API contamination) and analyzed for 61 APIs. Highest cumulative API concentrations were observed in sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia, and South America. The most contaminated sites were in low- to middle-income countries and were associated with areas with poor wastewater and waste management infrastructure and pharmaceutical manufacturing. The most frequently detected APIs were carbamazepine, metformin, and caffeine (a compound also arising from lifestyle use), which were detected at over half of the sites monitored. Concentrations of at least one API at 25.7% of the sampling sites were greater than concentrations considered safe for aquatic organisms, or which are of concern in terms of selection for antimicrobial resistance. Therefore, pharmaceutical pollution poses a global threat to environmental and human health, as well as to delivery of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
ER  -