Wastewater treatment effluent has been found to contain trace amounts of antibiotic resistant DNA, according to recent research. These products are often reintroduced to the environment and water supply, potentially resulting in the spread of antibiotic resistance.
As such, researchers at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering are studying the development of these genes in wastewater treatment processes. Their findings, published in Environmental Science & Technology, indicate that even low concentrations of just a single type of antibiotic leads to resistance to multiple classes of antibiotics.
“We’re quickly getting to a scary place that's called a post-antibiotic world,
