Department of Environmental and Civil Engineering, Toyama Prefectural University, Toyama 939 0398, Japan.
Department of Environmental and Civil Engineering, Toyama Prefectural University, Toyama 939 0398, Japan.
Sci Total Environ. 2021 Jul 1;776:145740. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145740. Epub 2021 Feb 15.
Antiviral drugs have been used to treat the ever-growing number of coronavirus disease, 2019 (COVID-19) patients. Consequently, unprecedented amounts of such drug residues discharging into ambient waters raise concerns on the potential ecotoxicological effects to aquatic lives, as well as development of antiviral drug-resistance in wildlife. Here, we estimated the occurrence, fate and ecotoxicological risk of 11 therapeutic agents suggested as drugs for COVID-19 treatment and their 13 metabolites in wastewater and environmental waters, based on drug consumption, physical-chemical property, and ecotoxicological and pharmacological data for the drugs, with the aid of quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) modelling. Our results suggest that the removal efficiencies at conventional wastewater treatment plants will remain low (<20%) for half of the substances, and consequently, high drug residues (e.g. 7402 ng/L ribavirin, 4231 ng/L favipiravir, 730 ng/L lopinavir, 319 ng/L remdesivir; each combined for both unchanged forms and metabolites; and when each drug is administered to 100 patients out of 100,000 populations on a day) can be present in secondary effluents and persist in the environmental waters. Ecotoxicological risk in receiving river waters can be high (risk quotient >1) by a use of favipiravir, lopinavir, umifenovir and ritonavir, and medium (risk quotient >0.1) by a use of chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, remdesivir, and ribavirin, while the risk will remain low (risk quotient <0.1) for dexamethasone and oseltamivir. The potential of wild animals acquiring antiviral drug resistance was estimated to be low. Our prediction suggests a pressing need for proper usage and waste management of antiviral drugs as well as for improving removal efficiencies of drug residues in wastewater.
抗病毒药物已被用于治疗不断增加的新型冠状病毒病（COVID-19）患者。因此，排入环境水中的此类药物残留量前所未有，引起了人们对水生生物潜在生态毒理学影响以及野生动物中抗病毒药物耐药性发展的关注。在这里，我们根据药物消耗、物理化学性质以及药物的生态毒理学和药理学数据，借助定量结构-活性关系（QSAR）模型，估算了 11 种被建议用于 COVID-19 治疗的治疗药物及其 13 种代谢物在废水和环境水中的出现、归宿和生态毒理学风险。我们的研究结果表明，对于一半的物质，传统污水处理厂的去除效率仍然较低（<20%），因此，高药物残留（例如，利巴韦林 7402ng/L、法匹拉韦 4231ng/L、洛匹那韦 730ng/L、瑞德西韦 319ng/L；每种物质的未改变形式和代谢物组合；当每天 100000 人中使用 100 人时）可存在于二级出水中，并在环境水中持续存在。在接受河水的生态毒理学风险可能很高（风险商数>1），通过使用法匹拉韦、洛匹那韦、乌米酚韦和利托那韦，中等（风险商数>0.1），通过使用氯喹、羟氯喹、瑞德西韦和利巴韦林，而地塞米松和奥司他韦的风险将保持低（风险商数<0.1）。野生动物获得抗病毒药物耐药性的潜力估计较低。我们的预测表明，迫切需要适当使用和管理抗病毒药物，并提高废水处理中药物残留的去除效率。
