Pharmaceuticals and personal care products mediated antimicrobial resistance: future challenges

Abstract Pharmaceuticals and personal care products are diverse compounds used for the treatment of diseases to promote health, enhance growth and meat production in farm animals. The consumption of pharmaceuticals has increased by 36% during the year 2000–10. Pharmaceuticals are often excreted in unmetabolized form or as active metabolites into the environment. These emerging contaminants impose selection pressure on the environmental microbes leading to the development of antibiotic resistance. Microbes have now gained resistance against “the last resort of antibiotics.” Horizontal gene transfer plays the major role in the dissemination of antimicrobial resistance in diverse niches. It accounts for about 70% exchange of resistance genes between pathogens and environmental microbes. A global, multidimensional approach is required to combat antibiotic resistance. It should emphasize on the conservation of antibiotics by judicious use, adoption of hygiene and cleaner production technology, vaccine development against diseases, and the discovery of novel antimicrobials compounds using functional metagenomics and CRISPR-CAS techniques.