Development of Antibiotic Resistance in Wastewater Treatment Plants

Antibiotic resistant bacteria and antibiotic resistance genes have been of the emerg- ing contaminant threatening human health. The overuse of antibiotics, both in human patients and, importantly, in livestock, has led to an explosion of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, both in the U.S. and around the world. The prediction from the World Health Organization (WHO) is that, if nothing changes, the future will look a lot like the past— where people die from minor injuries that become infected. One of the goals should be a long-term sustainable balance with everything in our environment, including bacteria to promote human health. Different microbial techniques have been employed to study the occurrence and spread of antibiotic resistance in the environment, preventing us from returning to a pre-antibiotic era. Dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes to the environment is an important factor causing an increased prevalence of resistant patho- gens. Their spread to multidrug-resistant pathogens is one of the most emerging clinical challenges.