IIT-Gandhinagar wastewater study reveals resistance among microbes against antibiotics post-Covid

A surveillance of microbes in wastewater across sewage treatment plants, points along Sabarmati river, and lakes in Ahmedabad city by researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar (IIT-Gn), has indicated an increased resistance to antibiotic drugs.

A major driver in the recent trend of the drug resistance, IIT-Gn researchers suspect, could be the abundant prescription of antibiotics during the pandemic, as compared to pre-Covid-19 period in 2018.

Drugs, which do not metabolise in the body, are often expelled out as it is or as a by-product in the form of bodily waste, such as excreta and urine, and this faecal matter mixes in wastewater through the sewer system. Not only faecal matter, but improper disposal of unused or expired drugs in households and hospitals, also end up in wastewater, professor Manish Kumar of Discipline of Earth Sciences division at IIT-Gn and the lead author of the latest study said.