Antimicrobial Resistance and Bacteriophages: An Overlooked Intersection in Water Disinfection

From a precautionary viewpoint, monitoring of phages and ARGs should be included when designing and developing new disinfection treatments aimed at removing possible AMR risks from treated water.

Investments in upgrading wastewater treatment plants to decrease AMR risk in treated waters are on the horizon for the water industry.

Deployment of disinfection to remove phages and the related AMR risk needs further assessment. The method should be cost-effective and should not trigger horizontal gene transfer side-effects. Membrane filtration methods are promising technologies to remove both phages and ARGs, but these still need to decrease in cost.