Pharmaceuticals in the Environment: Levels of Selected Drugs in Water in Lagos, Nigeria
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
Pharmaceuticals are discharged daily into the environment through drug manufacturing activities and from human and animal waste. Once in the environment, they are consumed unintentionally by the general population (in sub therapeutic amounts) and may cause human health and ecological adverse consequences over time. This study determined the levels of artemether, diclofenac and ofloxacin in samples from well, borehole and treated tap water in Mushin Area of Lagos State, Nigeria. Samples were collected using standard procedures and pre-concentrated by means of solid phase extraction cartridges. Analyses were carried out using HPLC with UV detector and analytes were quantified from standard calibration curves of the three drugs. The results show that artemether and diclofenac were present in borehole water in concentrations of 0.62 and 0.39 mg/L respectively and in treated tap water in concentrations of 0.04 and 0.17 mg/L respectively. Ofloxacin was detected in all three categories of water samples and the concentrations were 0.73, 0.24 and 0.08 mg/L for well, borehole water and treated tap water respectively. It is concluded that the levels of the three drugs in the samples were higher than WHO accepted values and therefore potentially harmful to human health.
Downloads
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
References
Anekwe JE, Mohamed AA, Stuart H (2017). Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in the freshwater aquatic environment. Emerging Contaminants 3: 1-16.
Ashton D, Hilton M, Thomas KV (2004). Investigating the potential risk to the environment from human pharmaceuticals. Science of the Total Environment 333(1-3): 167-184.
César IC, Pianetti GA (2009). Quantitation of artemether in pharmaceutical raw material and injections by high performance liquid chromatography. Brazilian Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences 45(4): 737-742.
Chen K, Zhou JL (2014). Occurrence and behaviour of antibiotics in water and sediments from the Huangpu River, Shanghai, China. Chemosphere 95: 604-612.
Fatta D, Achilleos A, Nikolaou A, Meric S (2007). Analytical methods for tracing pharmaceutical residues in water and wastewater. Trends in Analytical Chemistry 26(6): 515-533.
Fick J, Soderstrom H, Lindberg RH, Phan C, Tysklind M, Larsson DG (2010). Contamination of Surface, Ground, and Drinking Water from Pharmaceutical Production. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 28(12): 2522–2527.
Golet EM, Alder A, Giger W (2002). Environmental exposure and risk assessment of fluoroquinolone antibacterial agents in wastewater and river water. Earth and Environmental Science 50(3): 297-305.
Hickey EJ, Raje RR, Reid VE, Gross SM, Ray SD (2001). Diclofenac induced in vivo nephrotoxicity may involve oxidative stress-mediated massive genomic DNA fragmentation and apoptotic cell death. Free Radical Biology and Medicine 31(2): 139-152.
Hoeger BB, Kollner DR, Dietrich BH (2005). Water-borne diclofenac affects kidney and gill integrity and selected immune parameters in brown trout (Salmo trutta f. fario). Aquat. Toxicol. 75: 53-64.
Jonathan PB, Nicolaos V (2005). Household disposal of pharmaceuticals as a pattern for aquatic contamination in the United Kingdom. Environ Health Perspect. 113: 1705–1711.
Kasprzyk-Hordern B, Dinsdale RM, Guwy AJ (2008). The occurrence of pharmaceuticals, personal care products, endocrine disruptors and illicit drugs in surface water in South Wales, UK. Water Res. 42: 3498-3518.
Kolpin DW, Furlong ET, Meyer MT, Thurman EM, Zaugg SD, Barber LB, Buxton HT (2002). Pharmaceuticals, hormones, and other organic wastewater contaminants in U.S. streams, 1999-2000: A national reconnaissance. Environmental Science & Technology, 36(6): 1202-1211.
Lindholm-Lehto PC, Ahkola HS, Knuutinen JS, Herve SH (2015). Occurrence of pharmaceuticals in municipal wastewater, in the recipient water, and sedimented particles of northern Lake Päijänne. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 22(21):17209-17223.
Loffler DJ Rombke MM, Ternes TA (2005). Environmental fate of pharmaceuticals in water/sediment systems. Environ. Sci. Technol. 39: 5209-5218.
Miraji H, Othman OC, Ngassapa FN, Mureithi EW (2016). Research trends in emerging contaminants on the aquatic environments of Tanzania. Scientifica; (6).
Mnif W, Hassine AI, Bouaziz A, Bartegi A, Thomas O, Roig B (2011). Effect of endocrine disruptor pesticides: a review. International journal of environmental research and public health, 8(6): 2265-2303.
Ng LE, Lim HY, Vincent AS, Halliwell B, Wong KP (2006). Nephrotoxicity of diclofenac. Mitochondrion. 15(6): 13-14.
Nikolaou A, Meric S, Fatta D (2007). Occurrence patterns of pharmaceuticals in water and wastewater environments. Analytical and bioanalytical chemistry. 387(4): 1225-1234.
Novo A, Andre S, Viana P, Nunes OC, Manaia CM (2013). Antibiotic resistance, antimicrobial residues and bacterial community composition in urban wastewater. Water Res. 47: 1875-1887.
Oaks JL, Gilbert M, Virani MZ, Watson RT, Meteyer CU, Rideout BA, Shivaprasad HL, Ahmed S, Chaudhry MJ, Arshad M, Mahmood S (2004). Diclofenac residues as the cause of vulture population decline in Pakistan. Nature 427: 630-633.
Olaitan J, Anyakora C, Tolulope B, Tella AT (2014). Determination of pharmaceutical compounds in surface and underground water by solid phase extraction-liquid chromatography. Journal of Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology. 6: 20-26.
Oliver JAH, Nick V, John NL (2003). Potential impact of pharmaceuticals on environmental health. Bulletin of the World Health Organization 81(10): 768–769.
Oshikoya KA Ojo OI (2007). Medication errors in paediatric outpatient prescriptions of a teaching hospital in Nigeria. Nig Q J Hosp Me. 17(2): 74-78.
Raghav M, Eden S, Mitchell K, Witte B (2013). Contaminants of Emerging Concern in Water. The Arroyo. Water Resources Research Center, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, University of Arizona 350 N. Campbell Ave.,
Tucson, Arizona 85719. Available at; https://wrrc.arizona.edu/sites/wrrc.arizona.edu/files/Arroyo2013LR_0.pdf
Randhir PD, Rolf UH (2013). Pharmaceuticals in the Built and Natural Water Environment of the United States. Water 5: 1346-1365.
Shraim A, Diab A, Alsuhaimi A, Niazy E, Metwally M, Amad M, Sioud S, Dawoud A (2017). Analysis of some pharmaceuticals in municipal wastewater of Almadinah Almunawarah. Arabian Journal of Chemistry 10(1): S719-S729.
Tauxe-Wuersch A, De Alencastro LF, Grandjean D, Tarradellas J (2005). Occurrence in sewage treatment plants and risk assessment of several acidic drugs in Switzerland. Water Research 39: 1761-1772.
Varga M, Dobor J, Helenkar A, Jurecska L, Yao J, Zaray G (2010). Investigation of acidic pharmaceuticals in river water and sediment by microwave-assisted extraction and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Microchem. J. 95: 353-358.
World Health Organization (2012). Pharmaceuticals in drinking-water. Available at http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/44630/9789241502085_eng.pdf;jsessionid=F0DA0377670432EEC58F89EC03367B34?sequence=1. Accessed 19th December, 2019.
Zhou J, Broodbank N (2014). Sediment-water interactions of pharmaceutical residues in the river environment. Water Res. 48: 61-70.
Zhou LJ, Ying GG, Zhao JL, Yang JF, Wang L, Yang B, Liu S(2011). Trends in the occurrence of human and veterinary antibiotics in the sediments of the Yellow River, Hai River and Liao River in northern China. Environ. Pollut. 159: 1877-1885.