Department of Chemistry, Durban University of Technology, P O Box 1334, Durban, 4000, South Africa; Molecular Sciences Institute, University of Witwatersrand, Private Bag X3, Johannesburg, 2050, South Africa.
Molecular Sciences Institute, University of Witwatersrand, Private Bag X3, Johannesburg, 2050, South Africa.
J Environ Manage. 2017 May 15;193:211-220. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2017.02.022. Epub 2017 Feb 20.
In this review paper, the milestones and challenges that have been achieved and experienced by African Environmental Scientists regarding the assessment of water pollution caused by the presence of pharmaceutical compounds in water bodies are highlighted. The identification and quantification of pharmaceuticals in the African water bodies is important to the general public at large due to the lack of information. The consumption of pharmaceuticals to promote human health is usually followed by excretion of these drugs via urine or fecal matter due to their slight transformation in the human metabolism. Therefore, large amounts of pharmaceuticals are being discharged continuously from wastewater treatment plants into African rivers due to inefficiency of employed sewage treatment processes. Large portions of African communities do not even have proper sanitation systems which results in direct contamination of water resources with human waste that contains pharmaceutical constituents among other pollutants. Therefore, this article provides the overview of the recent studies published, mostly from 2012 to 2016, that have focused on the occurrence of different classes of pharmaceuticals in African aqueous systems. Also, the current analytical methods that are being used in Africa for pharmaceutical quantification in environmental waters are highlighted. African Scientists have started to investigate the materials and remediation processes for the elimination of pharmaceuticals from water.
在这篇综述论文中，重点介绍了非洲环境科学家在评估水体中因存在药物化合物而造成的水污染方面所取得的里程碑和面临的挑战。由于缺乏信息，非洲水体中药物的识别和定量对广大公众来说非常重要。由于这些药物在人类新陈代谢中只有轻微的转化，因此，大量的药物通常通过尿液或粪便排泄，以促进人类健康。因此，由于所采用的污水处理工艺效率低下，大量的药物不断从污水处理厂排放到非洲河流中。很大一部分非洲社区甚至没有适当的卫生系统，导致含有药物成分和其他污染物的人类废物直接污染水资源。因此，本文概述了最近发表的研究，这些研究主要集中在 2012 年至 2016 年期间，重点介绍了不同类别的药物在非洲水系统中的存在情况。还强调了目前非洲用于环境水中药物定量的分析方法。非洲科学家已经开始研究材料和修复过程，以消除水中的药物。
