Antimicrobial resistance as an emerging concern – is our wastewater treatment enough?

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is emerging as a huge threat to human health worldwide, but has generally been thought of as a medical, rather than an environmental, problem. However, it is now clear that ‘the environment’ is a major driver behind the emergence and spread of AMR in microbes capable of infecting humans and their associated animals, and that wastewater is a major carrier of resistant organisms and genetic determinants of resistance, as well as of agents that select for resistance.

This technical webinar will explore the processes by which wastewater contamination leads to new and more threatening resistant pathogens, and examine why focusing on just the chemical contaminants in soil may not be sufficient to ensure our health. In turn, this suggests that we may need to reconsider the ways we currently manage wastewater.  Do they need to change in order to keep us safe?