Occurrence and ecological risk assessment of fluoroquinolone antibiotics in hospital waste of Lahore Pakistan

Publication date: Available online 23 December 2015 Source:Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology Author(s): Muhammad Ashfaq, Khujasta Nawaz Khan, Sana Rasool, Ghulam Mustafa, Muhammad Saif-Ur-Rehman, Muhammad Faizan Nazar, Qian Sun, Chang-Ping Yu In the present study, wastewater and sludge samples of two major hospitals of Lahore, Pakistan were analyzed by developing an HPLC-UV method for the possible occurrence of five frequently used fluoroquinolone antibiotics i.e. ofloxacin, ciprofloxacin, sparfloxacin, moxifloxacin and gemifloxacin. The highest detected concentration was for moxifloxacin in both wastewater (224μg/L) and sludge samples (219μg/Kg. The highest concentration of ofloxacin, ciprofloxacin, sparfloxacin and gemifloxacin were found to be 66, 18, 58 and 0.2μg/L respectively. Risk quotient (RQ) was also calculated based on maximum measured concentrations and the RQ values were very high particularly for ofloxacin and ciprofloxacin. The maximum RQ values for ofloxacin against Vibrio fisheri, Pseudomonas putida, fish, Daphnia, Green algae and Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata were 3300, 66000, 124, 46, 3300 and 6000 respectively. In case of ciprofloxacin, RQ values were found to be 1750 and 3500 against green algae and M. aeruginosa, respectively.
Source: Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology - Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research