Swedish Antibiotics Could Spawn Drug-Resistant Bacteria in India

Research from the University of Gothenburg has revealed that 31% of antibiotics sold in Sweden contain drugs manufactured near Hyderabad, India, where porous wastewater treatment has led to widespread contamination.

The questionable water treatment facilities were found to release levels of the antibiotic ciprofloxacin which were 5 times higher than the daily consumption of the entire country of Sweden. At levels that high, there is an increased risk of breeding “super germs”, drug-resistant bacteria which have evolved an immunity to antibiotics.

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Despite being home to some of the world’s strictest environmental health legislation, there’s still no public disclosure of where drugs distributed in Sweden are manufactured. This should raise alarms throughout Europe and the U.S., since many common drugs distributed there are also manufactured in India.

According to another report just weeks ago, certain waterways in India were found with drug levels 150 times higher than the highest levels found in the United States. Ciprofloxacin was only part of the pharmaceutical soup discovered. In just one stream, 21 different drugs for everything from gonorrhea to depression were found– some levels were the highest ever detected.

Furthermore, drinking from these streams and rivers is unavoidable for most of the local people and their livestock. The poor in India are completely helpless to the consequences; for many it’s their only source for water.

Researchers urged that these reports should raise serious questions everywhere about the urgent need for transparency in the drug production chain for consumers.

Image Credit: prakhar on Flickr under a Creative Commons License

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