US EditionAircraft Wastewater Study Uncovers Imported Superbugs
Researchers detected nine high-priority antimicrobial-resistant pathogens in wastewater from 44 international flights, with resistance genes to last-resort antibiotics found on 17 flights.
- Researchers examined lavatory wastewater from 44 long-haul international repatriation flights that arrived in Australia over the period spanning late 2020 to late 2021 to identify antimicrobial-resistant superbugs.
- This study addresses the critical demand for novel surveillance techniques as the global movement of people accelerates the spread of antimicrobial resistance, which is expected to result in tens of millions of deaths worldwide between 2025 and 2050.
- The researchers detected nine priority drug-resistant pathogens, identifying five superbugs in every sample and a gene linked to last-resort antibiotic resistance on 17 flights, while this particular gene was not found in Australian urban wastewater collected during the same timeframe.
- Dr. Warish Ahmed highlighted that aircraft toilet wastewater can now be utilized as a proactive health monitoring method, while Professor Ashbolt observed that flights originating from Asia, particularly India, exhibited greater levels of antibiotic resistance genes compared to those from Europe and the UK.
- These results demonstrate that analyzing aircraft wastewater is an effective, affordable, and non-invasive method for monitoring antimicrobial resistance worldwide, with the potential to enhance public health strategies by alerting authorities to new and developing superbug risks.
14 Articles
14 Articles
Airplane toilet water may help combat the next pandemic
Airplane bathrooms aren’t exactly the most pleasant, comfortable, or even hygienic experiences. But their sheer number of daily occupants while cruising at 30,000 feet may present a major public health opportunity. As everyday pathogens continue developing into deadly superbug variants, researchers believe the collective wastewater inside commercial aircraft can provide an easy-to-access, cheap, and noninvasive source of real-time pandemic monit…
Aircraft toilets could flush out spread of global superbugs
Wastewater from aircraft toilets could provide a critical warning system for the global spread of antimicrobial resistant (AMR) superbugs, a silent pandemic that threatens to kill more people than cancer by 2050.
Aircraft Toilets May Help Halt the Spread of Global Superbugs
In the relentless global battle against antimicrobial resistance (AMR), a burgeoning “silent” pandemic that threatens to eclipse cancer as a leading cause of death by 2050, researchers are pioneering an innovative surveillance tool: aircraft wastewater monitoring. Scientists from Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, in collaboration with international partners including Xiamen University, the University of South […]
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