For the first time, researchers in Los Angeles discovered bacteria that are highly resistant to colistin, a “last resort” antibiotic, in the US county’s wastewater. The discovery was uncovered while monitoring the untreated waters of two of Los Angeles’ main treatment plants, the Joint Water Pollution Control Plant in Carson and the Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant in Playa del Rey, a procedure that started after the Covid epidemic.
According to the Los Angeles Times, these facilities serve around 7.5 million people. That has disturbed experts since this antibiotic, for which there is evidence of resistance, is used when all other medications, particularly penicillin, fail to work.
“Testing found antibiotic resistance genes on two novel small plasmids, circular pieces of DNA that can be shared among different types of unrelated bacteria,” said USC researcher Adam Smith, whose findings were published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters.
“This is probably the scariest aspect: the potential for this resistance to spread widely across different bacterial populations,” Smith said.
He stated that while this type of antibiotic-resistant gene has been discovered on “six of the seven continents,” it is the first time that evidence of this antibiotic resistance has been discovered in Los Angeles.
Antibiotic resistance, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), is one of the most serious risks to global health, food security, and development. Although it happens naturally, the process is thought to be triggered by antibiotic abuse in people and animals.
World Health Organization warns of increasing antibiotic resistance and post-antibiotic era
As antibiotics become less effective, it is getting more difficult to treat a growing number of infections such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, gonorrhea, and salmonellosis, according to the World Health Organization. As antibiotics become less effective, it is getting more difficult to treat a growing number of infections such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, gonorrhea, and salmonellosis, according to the World Health Organization.
“We could get to the point where we can’t combat infections with antibiotics,” Smith said, “so we’re entering sort of a post-antibiotic world.”
What’s more, antibiotic resistance leads to longer hospital stays, higher medical expenditures, and increased death. Colistin was identified in China in 2015 and has since been documented on every continent except Antarctica, according to Smith. This includes Los Angeles, where a resident died in 2016 after being infected with E. coli bacterium carrying a colistin resistance gene.