Publication detail

Is the reliability of wastewater-based epidemiology affected by season? Comparative analysis with pharmaceuticals prescriptions

CARNEVALE MIINO, M. MACSEK, T. HALEŠOVÁ, T. CHORAZY, T. HLAVÍNEK, P.

Original Title

Is the reliability of wastewater-based epidemiology affected by season? Comparative analysis with pharmaceuticals prescriptions

Type

journal article in Web of Science

Language

English

Original Abstract

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has been already proposed by several authors for estimating the consumption of drugs, mainly the illicit ones. However, not much information is available about the actual reliability of this tool given the absence of comparison with the actual consumption. This work aims to evaluate the reliability of the WBE as a tool for estimating the consumption of pharmaceuticals in urban area. Measured consumption back-calculated with a WBE approach was compared with prescription of pharmaceutical products as “control.” Moreover, seasonal influence on (i) pharmaceutical consumption, (ii) load of pharmaceutical products in the sewer system, and (iii) reliability of WBE was evaluated. Ciprofloxacin, sulfamethoxazole, metoprolol, carbamazepine, and citalopram were estimated by WBE with a difference respect to the “control” value lower than 0.2 order of magnitude while only trimethoprim and sotalol exceeded the 0.5 order of magnitude of difference but below the 1 order of magnitude. Sedatives were the best represented by WBE (on average 0.15 order of magnitude of difference compared to prescription data). However, further studies are suggested to fully estimate the influence of the type of APs on the reliability of the WBE. Seasonal patterns were found for the load of ciprofloxacin in the sewer and for the consumption of sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim by population but seasonal changes did not have a significant impact (p > 0.05) on the reliability of WBE. Despite some gaps remained to optimize the reliability of the tool, WBE can be considered a valid method to estimate the consumption of prescribed drugs from the analysis of the sewer system.

Keywords

Wastewater Based Epidemiology (WBE); Wastewater treatment plant; Emerging contaminants; Drug consumption; Pharmaceutical products; Seasonal patterns

Authors

CARNEVALE MIINO, M.; MACSEK, T.; HALEŠOVÁ, T.; CHORAZY, T.; HLAVÍNEK, P.

Released

5. 2. 2024

Publisher

Springer-Verlag

Location

Berlin, Germany

ISBN

1614-7499

Periodical

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND POLLUTION RESEARCH

Year of study

31

Number

7

State

Federal Republic of Germany

Pages count

11

URL

BibTex

@article{BUT187741,
  author="Marco {Carnevale Miino} and Tomáš {Macsek} and Taťána {Halešová} and Tomáš {Chorazy} and Petr {Hlavínek}",
  title="Is the reliability of wastewater-based epidemiology affected by season? Comparative analysis with pharmaceuticals prescriptions",
  journal="ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND POLLUTION RESEARCH",
  year="2024",
  volume="31",
  number="7",
  pages="11",
  doi="10.1007/s11356-024-32110-w",
  issn="1614-7499",
  url="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11356-024-32110-w#Fun"
}