Environment Effect Of Antiviral DRUGS – Free PDF Download

• Scientists all over the world are testing whether drugs previously developed to treat other viral infections might also be effective against the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

• Frontline healthcare workers and slum dwellers were asked to take hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), an anti-malarial drug, as they were at higher risk of contracting SARS-CoV-2 virus.
• Several other antiviral drugs under trial include chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, lopinavir, and ritonavir, favipiravir, ribavirin, oseltamivir, and umifenovir.

Effects on Human

• Many of these anti virals are reported to have several toxic effect on human beings –

1. Abdominal cramps
2. anorexia,
3. diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting
4. cardiovascular effects
5. Hematologic effects – reduction in neutrophil count
6. Hypoglycemia
7. Retinal toxicity and central nervous system effects
8. Pancreatitis, allergic reaction
9. Kidney injury

Drugs enter our environment

• Anti viral Drugs undergo series of biotransformation and are excreted through faecal and urine waste.
• The rate of excretion can be as high as 90 per cent for some antiviral drugs.
• Wastewater treatment plants are either absent or overburdened across India.
• These drug compounds enter into the aquatic environment (rivers/nallahs/oceans) from treatment plants .

Other sources of Entry

1. Discharge of untreated wastewater from pharmaceutical industries
2. Untreated  hospital wastes
3. Disposal of expired drugs

• There is a considerable health risk in countries with poor sanitation facilities.

AMR Risk

• COVID 19 virus being found in sewage makes the risk of AMR a reality.
• Prolonged exposure of the viral genome to specific antiviral drugs can lead to development of antiviral resistance.
• Although antiviral drugs are attenuated via photolysis, hydrolysis, sorption, and biodegradation in the aquatic environment, some are reported to be persistent in the aquatic environment with a half-life of more than a year.

• These drugs are resistant to degradation and are commonly lipophilic (that is, they have an affinity for fats or lipids) in nature.
• Researchers studied the eco-toxic effect of antiviral drugs on several aquatic organisms, including crustaceans, fish and algae.
• Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine pose serious chronic threat to the aquatic environment.
• Both these drugs belong to a group of quinolone derivatives, which are recalcitrant, persistent, toxic, carcinogenic and teratogenic in nature.
• Favipiravir is known to produce a teratogenic effect.
• Teratogen = an agent that can disturb the development of an embryo or foetus

Predicted no-effect concentration (PNEC) 

• The concentration of a chemical which marks the limit below which no adverse effects of exposure in an ecosystem are measured.
• High concentrations of these drugs are expected in surface water, groundwater and soil, as a result of their increased consumption.
• Bioaccumulationis the gradual accumulation of substances, such as pesticides or other chemicals, in an organism.

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