Pharmaceuticals as Pollutants in the Aquatic Ecosystem – Antibiotics, Anti-inflammatory and Anti-psychotic Drugs

Abstract

Antibiotics came into existence with its discovery in 1929 by Alexander Fleming. With the advancement of science and the progress of drug discovery process led to the introduction of 160 novel antibiotics from synthetic and semi-synthetic origin during the period 1940-1970. The consumption had seen a steady rise of about 42.3 billion daily defined doses (DDD) between the years 2000 and 2015. In spite of antibiotic resistance still antibiotics consumption are found to increase on  a higher scale of about 67% by  2030. Thus,  the largest selling proposition of antibiotics makes  it easily available for detection in sewage,  wastewater  treatment  plants (WWTP), terrestrial, freshwater and marine environments. Globally, 10% of antibiotics usage occurs from hospitals and 80% occurs from community usage.