Editorial: Antimicrobial resistance in aquatic environments

Abstract

The current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has exacerbated the rapid diagnosis of infectious diseases outbreaks to take suitable epidemiological measures to minimize negative impacts (Oude Munnink et al., 2021). However, the silent pandemic of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) faces several outstanding questions about its evolution and dissemination. The urgency of an integrated approach involving all ecological compartments, where antimicrobials and antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) reservoirs are generated, maintained, and disseminated, is urgently required (Da Silva et al., 2020). Aquatic environments are critical for understanding how the AMR develops and spreads worldwide, considering their role as an endpoint of effluents of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) or direct disposition of sewage from human or animal origin (Zheng et al., 2021; Miłobedzka et al., 2022), the runoff of biosolids in the agriculture (Buta et al., 2021), and other anthropogenic factors that contribute to the propagation of antimicrobial resistance determinants. Therefore, this Research Topic aimed to deliver state-of-the-art knowledge and ideas on aquatic environments' role in selecting, maintaining, and dispersing AMR determinants. Fourteen articles from Europe, Asia, America, and Africa have been published on this topic that complements our knowledge and formulate several questions for the scientific community worldwide.