Worrying levels of Tamiflu are detectable in rivers during flu season, report researchers in Japan, raising questions about the use of this drug and the possibility of drug resistance emerging.
Gopal Ghosh, of Kyoto University, and colleagues looked for oseltamivir carboxylate in river water. This is the anti-influenza molecule that the body converts Tamiflu into.
Ghosh found the compound in sewage treatment plant effluent in Kyoto at concentrations likely to be “high enough to lead to antiviral resistance in waterfowl” he told Wired. Once resistance emerged in birds it might come back to haunt humans.
The paper in Environmental Health Perspectives detailing this research suggests treating effluent with ozone during influenza epidemics, when use of Tamiflu and the potential for resistance will sky-rocket.
Once ingested, virtually all Tamiflu will end up in the environment in the active form, notes environmental chemist Jerker Fick of Umeå University in Sweden. … Two years ago, Fick’s team published data showing that most sewage-treatment technologies will remove “zero percent” of any OC present. And ducks love hanging out around warm, nutrient-rich outflows of treated water during winter-flu season. While sampling for waterborne OC last year in Japan, “I saw it myself,” he says.