A team of researchers led by Joakim Larsson of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, has discovered that a stream in Patancheru, in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, contains the world's highest levels of drugs.

Patancheru is in an area close to Hyderabad which produces much of the world's drugs. After analysing samples of wastewater from around 90 factories, the researchers discovered that these factories dump their waste into local rivers and streams. Sufficient amounts of the powerful antibiotic ciprofloxacin were being discharged into one stream every day to treat everyone in a city of 90,000 people.

The water, which is supposedly clean, proved to be a 'floating soup' of 21 active pharmaceutical ingredients, used to treat hypertension, heart disease, chronic liver ailments, depression, gonorrhoea, ulcers and other ailments. The researchers claim that this is the highest level of pharmaceuticals ever detected in the environment.

M Narayana Reddy, president of India’s Bulk Drug Manufacturers Association, disputes Larsson’s initial results. He acknowledges that the area is polluted, but says that much of the contamination comes from human excrement and past industrial activities.

“We are using these drugs (traces of which are found in water here), and the disease is not being cured. There is resistance going on there,” said Dr A Kishan Rao, a medical doctor and environmental activist who has treated people for more than 30 years near the drug factories. He says he worries most about the long-term effects on his patients potentially being exposed to constant low levels of drugs. “It’s a global concern,” he said. “European countries and the US are protecting their environment and importing the drugs at the cost of the people in developing countries.”

Related news:

• Water quality: community-based bacteriological study of quality of drinking-water, Western Maharashtra, India, Source South Asia, 15 Oct 2008;
• India, Rajasthan: community water pollution monitoring in Pali, Source South Asia, 17 Sep 2008;
• India: protests about pollution of Ganges, Source South Asia, 19 Aug 2008

Related web site: US EPA - Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products as Pollutants (PPCPs)

Contact: Joakim Larsson, Associate Professor, Physiology/Endocrinology, Dept. of Physiology, Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, joakim.larsson@fysiologi.gu.se, personal web page

Source: Margie Mason, AP / Yahoo! News, 25 Jan 2009 and Times of India, 27 Jan 2009

Tags: south asia, water quality, water treatment, water-related diseases