Consumption trends of pharmaceuticals and psychoactive drugs in Latvia determined by the analysis of wastewater

Pharmaceutical and Recreational Drug Usage Patterns during and Post COVID-19 Determined by Wastewater-Based Epidemiology

“…Long-term WBE studies provide valuable insight into drug consumption patterns and are less affected by short-term fluctuations. This research is an extension of the previously reported year-long monitoring campaign covering 2021 [20]. In the first stage of the study, consumption trends during the COVID-19 pandemic were observed; however, the lack of reference data obtained during the third year of the pandemic, when many restrictions were cancelled (e.g., in May 2022, the requirement to wear masks in public transportation in Latvia was repealed), might have obscured the interpretation of the findings.…”

“…For the current study, we selected 40 compounds. These were chosen based on data collected during the first sampling campaign [20]. We focused on pharmaceutical substances and included popular recreational drugs, such as alcohol (determined as ethyl sulphate), nicotine (determined as cotinine), and caffeine, as lifestyle biomarkers.…”

“…The overestimation could be caused by several reasons. First, as described before, high uncertainty of consumption estimation by WBE is introduced by the excretion factor-the number of studies regarding human pharmacokinetics is very limited [20]. Second, sales statistics are calculated only for individual substances and not for combinations.…”

How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted wastewater-based epidemiology?

“…In the last year, little news appeared in the themes of the published investigations. There was a continuity of classic studies on disease-causing organisms (e.g., Dai et al, 2022 ; de Araújo et al, 2022 ; Mercier et al, 2022 ), pharmaceutical use (e.g., Duan et al, 2022 ; Gao et al, 2022a ; Tomsone et al, 2022 ), of illicit and licit drugs (e.g., Wang et al, 2022 ; Chappell et al, 2022 ; Zheng et al, 2022 ), antibiotic-resistant bacteria (e.g., Cai et al, 2022 ; Steenbeek et al, 2022 ; Holton et al, 2022 ), and consumption of sweeteners and steroids ( Li et al, 2022 ; Shimko et al, 2022 ). The novelties were, e.g., the study of the biochemical load in an urban system via WBE, which allowed a holistic understanding of the city's metabolism ( Kasprzyk-Hordern et al, 2022 ).…”

Stability and WBE biomarkers possibility of 17 antiviral drugs in sewage and gravity sewers

“…Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is an objective, timely and convenient monitoring tool and is developed to back-estimate the regional consumption of illicit drugs and pharmaceuticals by analyzing human-excreted compounds in municipal wastewater influent ( Daughton, 2001a ; 2001b ; 2018 ). WBE has been successfully used to estimate illicit drug abuse ( Lancaster et al, 2019 ; Thomas et al, 2012 ; Zheng et al, 2021 ), the consumption of alcohol and tobacco ( Reid et al, 2011 ; Wang et al, 2021 ; Zheng et al, 2020 ), the usage of common pharmaceuticals ( Duan et al, 2022 ; Gao et al, 2016 ; Tomsone et al, 2022 ; Xu et al, 2022a ) and the prevalence of hepatitis B ( Hou et al, 2020 ). Currently, WBE is also being developed to apply to monitor SARS-CoV-2 ( Acosta et al, 2022 ; Li et al, 2022 ; Medema et al, 2020 ; Xu et al, 2022b ).…”