Investigation of Antibiotic Resistome in Hospital Wastewater during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Is the Initial Phase of the Pandemic Contributing to Antimicrobial Resistance?

• Published in: Environmental science & technology Vol. 56; no. 21; pp. 15007 - 15018
• Main Authors: Wang, Changzhi, Mantilla-Calderon, David, Xiong, Yanghui, Alkahtani, Mohsen, Bashawri, Yasir M., Al Qarni, Hamed, Hong, Pei-Ying
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Easton American Chemical Society 01-11-2022
• Subjects: Antibiotic resistance; Antibiotics; Antimicrobial agents; Antimicrobial resistance; Carbapenemase; Contaminants in Aquatic and Terrestrial Environments; Coronaviruses; Correlation; COVID-19; Drug resistance; Genes; Genomes; Hospital wastes; Medical wastes; Metagenomics; Pandemics; Patients; Relative abundance; Sulfonamides; Tetracyclines; Wastewater; β Lactamase; One-Health; Antibiotic; SARS-CoV-2; metagenomics; antimicrobial resistance (AMR)
• ISSN: 0013-936X; 1520-5851
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.2c01834

Since the COVID-19 pandemic started, there has been much speculation about how COVID-19 and antimicrobial resistance may be interconnected. In this study, untreated wastewater was sampled from Hospital A designated to treat COVID-19 patients during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic alongside Hospital B that did not receive any COVID-19 patients. Metagenomics was used to determine the relative abundance and mobile potential of antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs), prior to determining the correlation of ARGs with time/incidence of COVID-19. Our findings showed that ARGs resistant to macrolides, sulfonamides, and tetracyclines were positively correlated with time in Hospital A but not in Hospital B. Likewise, minor extended spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBLs) and carbapenemases of classes B and D were positively correlated with time, suggesting the selection of rare and/or carbapenem-resistant genes in Hospital A. Non-carbapenemase bla VEB also positively correlated with both time and intI1 and was copresent with other ARGs including carbapenem-resistant genes in 6 metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs). This study highlighted concerns related to the dissemination of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) during the COVID-19 pandemic that may arise from antibiotic use and untreated hospital wastewater.