Environmental exposure to active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) can have negative effects on the health of ecosystems and humans. While numerous studies have monitored APIs in rivers, these employ different analytical methods, measure different APIs, and have ignored many of the countries of the world. This makes it difficult to quantify the scale of the problem from a global perspective. Furthermore, comparison of the existing data, generated for different studies/regions/continents, is challenging due to the vast differences between the analytical methodologies employed. Here, we present a global-scale study of API pollution in 258 of the world’s rivers, representing the environmental influence of 471.4 million people across 137 geographic regions. Samples were obtained from 1,052 locations in 104 countries (representing all continents and 36 countries not previously studied for API contamination) and analyzed for 61 APIs. Highest cumulative API concentrations were observed in sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia, and South America. The most contaminated sites were in low- to middle-income countries and were associated with areas with poor wastewater and waste management infrastructure and pharmaceutical manufacturing. The most frequently detected APIs were carbamazepine, metformin, and caffeine (a compound also arising from lifestyle use), which were detected at over half of the sites monitored. Concentrations of at least one API at 25.7% of the sampling sites were greater than concentrations considered safe for aquatic organisms, or which are of concern in terms of selection for antimicrobial resistance. Therefore, pharmaceutical pollution poses a global threat to environmental and human health, as well as to delivery of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Environmental exposure to active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) can have negative effects on the health of ecosystems and humans. While numerous studies have monitored APIs in rivers, these employ different analytical methods, measure different APIs, and have ignored many of the countries of the world. This makes it difficult to quantify the scale of the problem from a global perspective. Furthermore, comparison of the existing data, generated for different studies/regions/continents, is challenging due to the vast differences between the analytical methodologies employed. Here, we present a global-scale study of API pollution in 258 of the world’s rivers, representing the environmental influence of 471.4 million people across 137 geographic regions. Samples were obtained from 1,052 locations in 104 countries (representing all continents and 36 countries not previously studied for API contamination) and analyzed for 61 APIs. Highest cumulative API concentrations were observed in sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia, and South America. The most contaminated sites were in low- to middle-income countries and were associated with areas with poor wastewater and waste management infrastructure and pharmaceutical manufacturing. The most frequently detected APIs were carbamazepine, metformin, and caffeine (a compound also arising from lifestyle use), which were detected at over half of the sites monitored. Concentrations of at least one API at 25.7% of the sampling sites were greater than concentrations considered safe for aquatic organisms, or which are of concern in terms of selection for antimicrobial resistance. Therefore, pharmaceutical pollution poses a global threat to environmental and human health, as well as to delivery of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
This study was performed on the Tigris River (Baghdad city section) during the period between December 2016 and December 2018 to assess seasonal variation in water quality using the Overall Index of Pollution (OIP). The OIP is one of the reliable tools for the assessment of surface water quality. To calculate OIP-values, eight parameters were measured ( pH, Dissolved Oxygen "DO", Biological Oxygen Demand "BOD", Total Dissolved Solid "TDS", Total Hardness "TH", calcium "Ca", Sulphate "SO4" and Alkalinity). The results showed the anthropogenic activities impact of Baghdad population that directly discharge of "inadequate treated" waste water to the river. OIP values were acceptable (1˃OIP˃ 1.7) in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2018. However, in
... Show MoreThis study was carried out to measure the percentage of heavy metals pollution in the water of the Diyala river and to measure the percentage of contamination of these elements in the leafy vegetables grown on both sides of the Diyala river, which are irrigated by the contaminated river water (celery, radish, lepidium, green onions, beta vulgaris subsp, and malva). Laboratory analysis was achieved to measure the ratio of heavy element contamination (Pb, Fe, Ni, Cd, Zn and Cr) using flame atomic absorption spectrophotometer during the summer months of July and August for the year 2017. The study showed that the elements of zinc, chromium, nickel and cadmium were high concentrations and exceeded. The maximum concentration of these
... Show MoreA simple and highly sensitive cloud point extraction process was suggested for preconcentration of micrograms amount of isoxsuprine hydrochloride (ISX) in pure and pharmaceutical samples. After diazotization coupling of ISX with diazotized sulfadimidine in alkaline medium, the azo-dye product quantitatively extracted into the Triton X-114 rich phase, dissolved in ethanol and determined spectrophotometrically at 490 nm. The suggested reaction was studied with and without extraction and simple comparison between the batch and CPE methods was achieved. Analytical variables including concentrations of reagent, Triton X-114 and base, incubated temperature, and time were carefully studied. Under the selected optimum conditions,
... Show MoreMetoclopramide (MCP) ion selective electrodes based on metoclopramide-phosphotungstic acid (MCP-PT) ion pair complex in PVC matrix membrane were constructed. The plasticizers used were tri-butyl phosphate (TBP), di-octyl phenyl phosphonate (DOPP), di-butyl phthalate (DBPH), di-octyl phthalate (DOP), di-butyl phosphate (DBP), bis 2-ethyl hexyl phosphate (BEHP). The sensors based on TBP, DOPP, DBPH and DOP display a fast, stable and linear response with slopes 59.9, 57.7, 57.4, 55.3 mV/decade respectively at pH ranged 2-6. The linear concentration range between 1.0×10-5 – 1.0×10-2 M with detection limit 3.0×10-6 and 4.0×10-6 M for electrodes using TBP, DOPP and DBPH while e
... Show MoreA simple and highly sensitive cloud point extraction process was suggested for preconcentration of micrograms amount of isoxsuprine hydrochloride (ISX) in pure and pharmaceutical samples. After diazotization coupling of ISX with diazotized sulfadimidine in alkaline medium, the azo-dye product quantitatively extracted into the Triton X-114 rich phase, dissolved in ethanol and determined spectrophotometrically at 490 nm. The suggested reaction was studied with and without extraction and simple comparison between the batch and CPE methods was achieved. Analytical variables including concentrations of reagent, Triton X-114 and base, incubated temperature, and time were carefully studied. Under the selected opti
... Show MoreNitroso-R-salt is proposed as a sensitive spectrophotometric reagent for the determination of paracetamol in aqueous solution. The method is based on the reaction of paracetamol with iron(III) and subsequent reaction with nitroso-R-salt to yield a green colored complex with maximum absorption at 720 nm. Optimization of the experimental conditions was described. The calibration graph was linear in the concentration range of 0.1 – 2.0 ?g mL-1 paracetamol with a molar absorptivity of 6.9 × 104 L mol-1 cm-1. The method was successfully applied to the determination of paracetamol in pharmaceutical preparations without any interference from common excipients. The method has been statistically evaluated with British Pharmacopoeia method a
... Show MoreThe main objective of this paper is to develop and validate flow injection method, a precise, accurate, simple, economic, low cost and specific turbidimetric method for the quantitative determination of mebeverine hydrochloride (MbH) in pharmaceutical preparations. A homemade NAG Dual & Solo (0-180º) analyser which contains two identical detections units (cell 1 and 2) was applied for turbidity measurements. The developed method was optimized for different chemical and physical parameters such as perception reagent concentrations, aqueous salts solutions, flow rate, the intensity of the sources light, sample volume, mixing coil and purge time. The correlation coefficients (r) of the developed method were 0.9980 and 0.9986 for cell
... Show MoreA rapid and sensitive method for the determination of amoxicillin trihydrate (AMXT) based on the diazo-coupling reaction was studied. Sulphanilic acid diazotizes with nitrite ion in acidic medium to produce a water soluble, colorless diazonium ion, which subsequently coupled with AMXT to form a colored azo dye in the alkaline medium, having maximum absorption at 455 nm. The calibration graph showed that Beer's law is obeyed over the concentration range of 0.3 – 30.0 μg/mL of AMXT, with the detection limit of 0.15 μg/mL and molar absorptivity was 2.3 × 104 L/mol.cm. The accuracy and the precision were acceptable depending upon the values of error percentage and relative standard deviation. The influence of common interfer
... Show MorePhenytoin selective electrodes were constructed based on penytoin-phosphotungstate (Ph-PT) complex with different plasticizers; di-butyl phosphate (DBP), tri-butyl phosphate (TBP), di-butyl phthalate (DBPH),and o-nitro phenyl octyl ether (NPOE) phthalate. The electrodes based on DBPH, ONPOE plasticizers gave Narnistain slope which are, 56.4 and 55.3mV/decade with detection limit of 1.9x10-5 M , 1.8x10-5 and concentration range 10-1 to 10-4 M and pH range 3.0 – 8.0. The electrodes based on TBP and DBP showed non-Nernistain slopes, 40.2,40.5 mV/decade for both plasticizers. Interfering of some cations was investigated and shows no interfering with electrodes response. Potentiometric methods were used for measuring phenytion in
... Show MoreA simple, sensitive and accurate spectrophotometric method has been developed for the determination of salbutamol sulphate (SAB) and isoxsuprine hydrochloride (ISX) in pure and pharmaceutical dosage. The method involved oxidation of (SAB) and (ISX) with a known excess of N-bromosuccinamid in acidic medium, and subsequent occupation of unreacted oxidant in decolorization of Evans blue dye (EB). This, in the presence of SAB or ISX was rectilinear over the ranges 1.0-12.0, 1.0-11.0 µg/mL, with molar absorptivity 4.21×104 and 2.58×104 l.mol-1.cm-1 respectively. The developed method had been successfully applied for the determination of the studied drugs in their pharmaceutical dosage resulting i
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