Antibiotic pollution: India scores a global first with effluent limits

On 23 January 2020 the Indian Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) announced stringent standards on concentrations of antibiotics found in the waste discharged by pharmaceutical factories into rivers and the surrounding environment.

By doing so it became the first state regulator anywhere in the world to introduce such standards, meant to reduce chances of creating drug-resistant bacteria. Currently, there are no laws specifically aimed at curtailing antibiotics in wastewater in order to limit antibiotic resistance, even in Europe or the USA.