An innovative project resulting from the collaboration of Agbar -through Cetaqua, Labaqua and Aigües Sabadell- and the Institute of Research and Innovation of the Taulí Park (I3PT) studies the presence of genes and bacteria resistant to antibiotics in the waste water of Sabadell The results of this investigation could allow hospitals and health centers to adapt prescription guidelines (in addition to being able to count on an epidemiological surveillance mechanism).
In this pilot project, the researchers have taken samples for a year, at four different moments in time, capturing water from different areas of the city, according to their use of antibiotics. The samples were collected, by Aigües Sabadell and Cetaqua, at a point close to a hospital (in this case, the Taulí de Sabadell), where there is significant use of antibiotics; in a more urban area, where there is not as much relationship with the health sector; at a point close to a residence for the elderly, where these drugs are also widely used; and in a last area where there is no population, such as an industrial estate.
Samples were also taken from the city’s water treatment plants. “We wanted to see the difference between the different areas,” explains Mateu Espasa, a researcher at I3PT, to La Vanguardia.
It is at this research center where they have cultivated the samples and introduced specific antibiotics into the cultures to see which bacteria were resistant to those drugs, a procedure known as an antibiogram. But the investigations have not stopped there. The study also aims to identify resistant genes, says Espasa, an operation that has been carried out in Labaqua.
Resistance to an antibiotic -explains this researcher- is encoded by a gene, and this can be detected both in the bacteria and directly in the wastewater. “You don’t have to grow the bacteria in a culture.”
The information obtained through this study could allow health professionals to better adapt prescription guidelines. In addition, it could also help to dose broad-spectrum antibiotics, which are the most powerful. “If you have others that are just as effective and with a more limited spectrum, we can prescribe them. In the end it is adjusting the treatment”.
Espasa recalls that the inappropriate use of antibiotics is what “generates more resistance”, and all this in a context in which the development of these drugs “is very slow”. “There are broad-spectrum antibiotics that should be reserved for cases that need it. If we use them for everyone we will end up generating resistance and we will lose them”.
He warns that bacteria resistant to these antibiotics are appearing not only in Sabadell, but worldwide. “We have also detected them in wastewater, and this is a warning.”
It was Aigües Sabadell that knocked on the door of the Taulí to launch this study. “We told them that we had a lot of experience in finding traces of covid in the sanitation network and that we could help them create a preventive alert platform, similar to that of covid, but for other types of viruses or bacteria”, wields Xavier Cabanillas, general director of Aigües Sabadell, who recalls that the WHO itself predicted that the next pandemic could be led by bacteria resistant to antibiotics.
It is expected that the first results of the study can be made public by October, but Espasa is already advancing that the resistance genes detected by Labaqua “correlate quite well” with what they grow in crops. “What we observe regarding resistance they also detect at the gene level. It’s what we expected.”
The study has a second part: evaluating new wastewater treatment processes. “The selection of resistances also occurs in the water, there is an interaction”, argues Espasa. “That is why there are resistant bacteria that we have not yet seen in the healthcare setting, but they are there and at some point they can enter not only in the human setting, but also in the animal setting, and everything is interrelated,” she adds.
Jordi Vinyoles, head of sanitation and innovation at Aigües Sabadell, elaborates on the idea: “We are interested in seeing the persistence of these bacteria within the water cycle.” He recalls, however, that when water is used to be regenerated or made drinkable, “these microorganisms are no longer present.” “The water treatment plants destroy them.” What does have to be assessed, he adds, is “whether it can have some kind of affectation on the environment.”
