A team of Canadian and French researchers have found that dark clouds on the horizon can be ominous, not because they herald an approaching storm, but because they carry drug-resistant bacteria long distances.
“These bacteria usually live on the surface of vegetation, such as leaves, or in the soil,” lead author Florent Rossi said in a phone interview Friday.
“We found that they are carried by the wind into the atmosphere and can travel long distances - around the world - at high altitudes in the clouds,” he told AFP.
The discovery was published in last month’s issue of Science magazine. of General environment.
Researchers from the University of Laval in Quebec and the University of Clermont-Auvergne in central France looked for antibiotic resistance genes in bacteria in cloud samples.
The samples were taken from the Atmospheric Research Station, located at an altitude of 1,465 meters (4,806 feet) above sea level, on top of the extinct volcano Puy de Dome in central France between September 2019 and October 2021.
Analysis of the extracted haze showed that it contained between 330 and over 30,000 bacteria per milliliter of cloud water, averaging about 8,000 bacteria per milliliter.
They also identified 29 subtypes of antibiotic resistance genes in bacteria.
Drug resistance occurs when bacteria are exposed to antibiotics and develop generational immunity to them.
Health authorities have repeatedly warned that these adaptations are becoming what the study describes as a “major global public health problem,” making it difficult, and in some cases impossible, to treat some bacterial infections as the use of antibiotics in healthcare and agriculture continues to rise.
The study did not draw any conclusions about the possible health consequences of the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the atmosphere - it estimates that only 5% to 50% of organisms can be alive and potentially active.
But Rossi pointed out that the rates are probably low.
“The atmosphere is very stressful for bacteria, and most of the ones we found were environmental bacteria that are less likely to be harmful to humans. So people shouldn’t be afraid to walk in the rain.”
“It is not clear if these genes will be passed on to other bacteria,” Rossi added.
However, atmospheric monitoring can help identify sources of drug-resistant bacteria — like testing sewage for COVID-19 and other pathogens — “to limit their spread,” he says.
Source: Science Alert
You must log in to post a comment.