Occurrence, Fate and Ecological Risk of Antibiotics in Hospital Effluent Water and Sediments in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Antibiotics are among the emerging micro contaminants in the aquatic environment due to their potential adverse effects on the ecosystem and possibly on human health. Four important antibiotic classes, sulfanomides [sulfadiazine (SDI), sulfamethoxazol (SMX)], penicillin [amoxicillin (AMX), ampicilline (AMP)], tetracycline [oxytetracycline (OTC), tetracycline (TET)] and macrolids [erythromycin (ERM)] are used for human and veterinary medicine, were studied. Triplicate samples of hospital effluents water and sediment were collected from 50 sampling sites in different area of the country and Horton plaines as pristine environment for the study. Solid-Phase Extraction (SPE) was employed to concentrate anibiotics and quantification of were done by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). Recoveries for each antibiotic was remained between 83% ± 0.021 to 95% ± 0.034. Among the selected antibiotics tested; the highest concentrations of AMX and AMP were recorded in hospital effluent water. AMX and AMP were detected range between 0.001-0.023 ppm and 0.001 – 0.024 ppm respectively. The other antibiotics concentrations were; TET (water: 0-0.001ppm, sediments: N.D); SDI (water: 0.001- 0.003ppm, sediments: .001-0.003ppm); SMX (water: 0.001- 0.018ppm, sediments: 0.001-0.002ppm); ERM (water: 0.001-0.008ppm, sediments: 0.001-0.003ppm) respectively. Relatively high removal efficiency was detected for TET (50-100%) where desending order was followed by SDI (63-72%), SMX (52-72%), ERM (48-100%), AMP (40-54%) and AMX (35-58%) respectively. The results of the study can be incorporated into environmental risk assessments of the particular contaminants as the published information regarding antibiotic contamination ststus in water and sediment are limited in Sri Lanka.