A study on drug or pharmaceutical pollution in rivers around the world evaluated river water samples from across the world, including Delhi and Hyderabad. Traces of diabetes, epilepsy and painkillers have been found in river samples. Which is dangerous for our ecology and people’s health. This is the first study to detect and measure pharmaceutical residues in rivers. The highest amounts of pharmaceutical pollution have been found in rivers of lower middle income countries such as India, where there are large pharmaceutical product capacities but lax environmental regulations. The study assessed 258 rivers around the world to measure the presence of 61 drugs such as carbamazepine, metformin and caffeine. Rivers in 36 of the countries studied had never been monitored for pharmaceuticals before. Higher levels of pharmaceutical pollution were found to be associated with areas with higher average age, as well as higher local unemployment and poverty rates. The world’s most polluted countries and regions are those where the least research has been done. That is, Sub-Saharan Africa, South America and some parts of South Asia confirm this.
Most drug pollution involves accumulation or dumping of waste along river banks, lack of waste disposal infrastructure and dumping of residual septic tank waste into rivers.
