Spatiotemporal Investigation of Antibiotic Resistance in the Urban Water Cycle Influenced by Environmental and Anthropogenic Activity
Keira Tucker, Leonardos Mageiros, Alno Carstens, Ludwig Bröcker, Edward Archer, Katrin Smith, Evangelos Mourkas, Ben Pascoe, Daan Nel, Guillaume Méric, Samuel K. Sheppard, Barbara Kasprzyk‐Hordern, Marelize Botes, Edward J. Feil, Gideon Wolfaardt
Abstract
The results from this study are of importance as they fill a gap in the data available on environmental AMR in South Africa to date. This study was done in parallel with co-investigators focusing on the prevalence of various antimicrobials at the same sites selected in our study, verifying that the sites that are influenced by informal settlements and WWTW influent had higher concentrations of antimicrobials and antimicrobial metabolites. The various locations of the sample sites selected, the frequency of the samples collected over a year, and the different types of samples collected at each site all contribute to informing how AMR in the environment might be affected by anthropogenic activity.