Abstract

The occurrence of antibiotics in wastewater effluent has been a concern worldwide for the development of antibiotics resistance and the impact of antibiotic residues on living components in surface water may pose plausible threats on humans. Reverse phase - high performance liquid chromatographic (RP-HPLC) method was used for the detection and estimation of Oxytetracycline (OTC) and Chloramphenicol (CAP) in untreated wastewater effluents in Bangladesh. The flow rate was at 1.0 mL/min with UV detection at 270 and 310 nm. The retention time of OTC was 3.3 ± 0.1 min while CAP was 4.7 ± 0.1 min. The recovery was found to be ≥95% for both antibiotics demonstrating the accuracy of the protocol. Precision of the developed method both inter-day and intra-day were less than the maximum allowable limit (RSD% ≤ 2.0) according to ICH, USP and FDA guidelines. The method showed linear response with correlation coefficient (r2) value of 0.9996 and 0.9998 for OTC and CAP, respectively. The concentration of OTC was found to be 0.670-1.799 µg/mL and the concentration of CAP was found to be 0.316-0.921 µg/mL. Therefore, the presence of these antibiotics in waste-water poses a potential threat to the surrounding environments as well as its biotic components.

Key words: Antibiotic resistance, Bangladesh, Effluents, Surface water.