On 1 August 2024, the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) awarded $2.37m to the Water Research Foundation, Virginia Tech, Arizona State University, West Virginia University, and the University of South Florida as part of a ~$3.6m consortium effort for a grant titled ‘Evaluation of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) in Wastewater and Sewage Sludge Treatment and Its Impact on the Environment’.
Determine the ranges of mass loadings of antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) and resistance genes (ARGs) in wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluents and biosolids as a function of WWTP characteristics.
Estimate the degree to which WWTP effluent- and biosolid-borne ARB/ARGs attenuate or amplify in the environment and determine the controlling factors.
Evaluate evidence of WWTPs as a source of AMR infections in humans relative to other sources over a cross-section of US communities representative of diverse wastewater management scenarios.
Develop a human health risk assessment for WWTP effluent and biosolid sources of ARB/ARGs based on the knowledge gaps addressed through Objectives 1-3.
Engage and translate the research into actionable solutions for addressing AMR.

Wastewater treatment plants as a key barrier to the spread of deadly infections
Amy Pruden, University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech, and her collaborators have advanced foundational research over the last five years to develop the sampling and analysis methods and establish key collaborations with wastewater utilities, public health agencies, hospitals and health clinics, and medical researchers to set the stage for success with the US EPA grant that is now getting underway.

The research is scheduled to be completed in July 2027 and will provide quantitative insights into the contributions of wastewater to antibiotic-resistant pathogens and their ARGs to the water environment and ultimately into difficult-to-treat and deadly antibiotic-resistant infections in humans.

Standardising protocols for culture-based environmental AMR monitoring
Furthermore, as part of the Water Research Foundation Project 5052, they were able to carry out systematic literature reviews of candidate culture-based targets for AMR monitoring in water environments.

Culture-based targets present the advantage of verifying a viable target and also methods that can narrow in on specific bacteria of interest, such as faecal-indicator bacteria or pathogens.

Through a systematic literature review, they narrowed down targets and methods that are most promising for standardisation and for producing data that are comparable across general efforts to advance One Health monitoring of AMR in water, such as the World Health Organization TriCycle Protocol for ESBL E. coli.

A summary of promising methods for Enterococcus spp.2 is reported in Davis et al., and a summary of promising methods for Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter baumannii, and Aeromonas spp.3 is reported in Milligan et al.

Finally, they developed and validated a method for cefotaxime-resistant E. coli4 that adapts the US EPA Standard Method for E. coli with that of the TriCycle Protocol.

Source: https://www.innovationnewsnetwork.com/monitoring-amr-in-water-to-reduce-the-spread-of-infection/55406/