Waste generated by India’s drug manufacturing industry could be damaging environmental bacteria and creating ‘superbugs’ that are resistant to antibiotics – prompting a UK-India scientific intervention.

British and Indian researchers are joining forces to investigate the impact of waste release on microbial ecosystems – determining how much active antibiotic is released and which other potentially toxic chemicals are contained in the waste that may affect bacteria.

Led by scientists at the University of Birmingham, the SELECTAR project includes experts from the University of Leeds, Aligarh Muslim University, Panjab University, CSIR-Central Drug Research Institute, in Lucknow, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, Jamia Millia Islamia University, in Delhi.

Most of the world’s antibiotics are produced in Indian pharma factories – either by chemical synthesis or growing vast numbers of the micro-organisms which naturally produce them.

Either method generates large quantities of waste, potentially containing active antibiotics and chemicals which may be toxic to bacteria and other cell types. This waste goes through treatment plants before being released into the environment.

An estimated 58,000 babies die in India every year from superbug infections passed on from their mothers, whilst drug-resistant pathogens cause between 28,000 to 38,000 extra deaths in the European Union every year.

Project lead Professor Alan McNally, from the University of Birmingham, commented, “Without antibiotics we are unable to treat the majority of infectious diseases and chronic infections. Antibiotics prevent the deaths of patients suffering from respiratory diseases such as CF and COPD and are the cornerstone of treatments for cancer and leukaemia.

“However, manufacturing these wonder drugs generates waste which is treated before being released into the environment, creating an enormous potential issue. Put simply, the more we expose bacteria to antibiotics the more likely they may be to evolve resistance to the drugs meaning they can’t be used to treat infections.

“We desperately need to know exactly how much the release of antibiotic production waste leads to increasing antimicrobial resistance, which could ultimately plunge medicine back into the dark ages.”

Supported by over ￡790,000 of funding from UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) Fund for International Collaboration, the UK-Indian team of scientists will sample environments into which antibiotic production waste is released, and compare them to pristine environments.

The experts will carefully examine the waste to determine exactly how much active antibiotic is released but also which other potentially toxic chemicals it contains that may affect bacteria. They will also test the ability of these chemicals to create resistant bacteria, as a consequence of them trying to avoid chemical killing.

Professor Iqbal Ahmed of Aligarh Muslim University commented, “Release of waste from the manufacturing process creates an enormous potential issue in India and beyond, as the more we expose bacteria to antibiotics the faster they evolve resistance to the drugs meaning they can’t be used to treat infections. Our approach will allow us to determine exactly what effect the waste has on the microbial ecosystem; does it kill all beneficial bacteria to only leave harmful resistant bacteria alive.”

The project is part of ￡8 million package of UK-India government-backed research aimed at deepening existing scientific research collaboration with five new programmes to tackle anti-microbial resistance (AMR) that could lead to important advances in the global fight against antibiotic-resistant bacteria and genes.