Potentially toxic levels of pharmaceuticals have been found in more than a quarter of the world’s rivers, according to a study called the Global Monitoring of Pharmaceuticals Project, led by the University of York in the UK.

What to know:

• Rivers in over half of the world’s countries were studied, including some in 36 countries that had never previously been monitored for pharmaceuticals.

• A total of 258 rivers across the globe, including the Thames in London and the Amazon in Brazil, were tested in the first truly global-scale investigation of medicinal contamination in the environment.

• The presence of 61 pharmaceuticals was measured and a quarter of the sites contained contaminants (such as sulfamethoxazole, propranolol, ciprofloxacin, and loratadine) at potentially harmful concentrations.

• Pharmaceutical pollution was found on every continent.

• The highest levels of pharmaceutical pollution were associated with activities such as trash dumping along riverbanks, the dumping of the contents of residual septic tanks into rivers, as well as inadequate wastewater infrastructure and pharmaceutical manufacturing.

This is a summary of the article “Global study finds the extent of pharmaceutical pollution in the world’s rivers” published by the University of York, United Kingdom, on February 14. The full article can be found on york.ac.uk.

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