Seasonality impels the antibiotic resistance in Kelani River of the emerging economy of Sri Lanka

Abstract

We evaluated the occurrence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, antibiotic-resistant gene, and metal concentration in a tropical river of Sri Lanka as a pre-emptive effort to understand the seasonal impact on their prevalence. Resistance for norfloxacin, ciprofloxacin, levofloxacin, kanamycin monosulfate (KM), tetracycline (TC), and sulfamethoxazole (ST) was measured with Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method. The prevalence of Escherichia coli ranged from 10 to 27 CFU (colony-forming unit) ml −1 in Kelani River in Sri Lanka, and most of the E. coli isolates were resistant to more than one antibiotic. However, the resistance for TC and ST was much higher than other antibiotics. We found that the resistance percentage for older antibiotics like TC and ST was higher than the newer antibiotics. We detected genes that confer resistance to TCs, sulfonamides, β-lactams, and fluoroquinolones. Seasonal variation in the resistance of fluoroquinolones was much higher than the non-fluoroquinolones, but the effect was antagonistic. Overall, the significant seasonal variations imply the importance of mixed source and environmental conditions for development and transmission of antibiotic resistance.

A chronicle of SARS-CoV-2: Seasonality, environmental fate, transport, inactivation, and antiviral drug resistance

“…The seasonal variation of pharmaceuticals has been well studied, but similar study for antiviral drugs is still lacking ( Vieno et al, 2005 ). Kumar et al (2020) studied the seasonal trend in the occurrence of fluoroquinolone drugs viz., levofloxacin, norfloxacin and ciprofloxacin in Kelani and Brahmaputra rivers from Sri Lanka and India, respectively ( Kumar et al, 2020 ). It was found that concentration of drugs declined significantly in summer compared to the winter season.…”

Making Waves Perspectives of Modelling and Monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 in Aquatic Environment for COVID-19 Pandemic

“…The likelihood of indirect transmission is less likely in comparison to direct transmission. Further, there has been some evidence suggesting oral-faecal transmission of the virus as COVID-19 infects the intestinal tract, thereby indicating the faecal presence of the virus [93][94][95][96][97][98][99]. However, this paper, as mentioned above, rules out any such established possibility as of now.…”

A chronicle of SARS-CoV-2: Part-I - Epidemiology, diagnosis, prognosis, transmission and treatment

“…It can take throat, nasal, nasopharyngeal, and oropharyngeal swabs as samples to run a molecular test for the RdRp gene (Vashist, 2020). Further, wastewater based epidemiological (WBE) surveillance for the genetic material of SARS-CoV-19 has drawn loads of attention that can be helpful in early detection as well as resurgence of COVID-19 (Kumar et al, 2019a;Kumar et al, 2019b;Kumar et al, 2020a;Kumar et al, 2020b;Kumar et al, 2020c;Kitajima et al, 2020). WBE surveillance are expected to become handy for the potential eradication of the virus in a community.…”

“…Apart from climatic conditions (temperature and humidity), the transmission may be further triggered by population and medical facility (Dalziel et al, 2018;Hemmes et al, 1960). Based on the assumption that the SARS-CoV-2 is similar to SARS-CoV, it has been hypothesized that the SARS-CoV-2 may not survive at high temperature and humidity (Chan et al, 2011;Kumar et al, 2020a;Kumar et al, 2020b;Kumar et al, 2020c;Tobías and Molina, 2020) due to breakdown of the lipid membrane at elevated temperature (Schoeman and Fielding,Fig. 6.…”

“…Based on the data obtained, it was hypothesized that the lower number of cases in a tropical climate might be due to the warm, and humid climate. The underlying hypothesis of decrease in the spread of viruses during warmer seasons is higher vitamin D levels, resulting in better immune responses (Aranow, 2011;Kumar et al, 2020a;Kumar et al, 2020b;Kumar et al, 2020c). Interestingly, a common man notion is that in cold weather, people tend to stay inside, often in a closed room, at times close to each other, and that enhances the infection probability.…”