A global study looked for 14 commonly used antibiotics in rivers in 72 countries across six continents and found antibiotics at 65% of the sites monitored. The most prevalent antibiotic found was trimethoprim, which was detected at 307 of the 711 sites tested and is primarily used to treat urinary tract infections. The research led by University of York was presented at SETAC Helsinki in May 2019.
For more information:
Wilkinson, J., Boxall, A. and Kolpin, D. (2019). A Novel Method to Characterise Levels of Pharmaceutical Pollution in Large-Scale Aquatic Monitoring Campaigns. Applied Sciences, 9(7), p.1368. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/app9071368