In the fight against superbugs, airplane loos might not be the heroes humanity needs… but they’re probably the one we deserve.
The boffins out at CSIRO may have stumbled across a pooclear weapon in the war against the spread of antibiotic resistant pathogens, with the humble airplane dunny proving to be a viable surveillance tool.
Superbugs are poised to become one of the major villains of this century, projected to cause more than 39 million deaths between 2025 and 2050.
“Given the escalating scale of international travel, the global transmission of [antimicrobial resistant bacteria] with novel [antibiotic resistance genes] to the destination region is expected to accelerate due to high cross-border mobility, as seen previously with NDM carbapenemases,” CSIRO researchers wrote in Microbiology Spectrum.
“This extension to transmission will pose a great burden on modern medicine in the global combat against bacterial infections.”
The remaining question, of course, is how to keep track of all those pesky new bacteria before they become a huge problem.
If only there was some way to detect the mixture of bacteria emigrating to our shores without having to ask each traveller individually to submit to a swab…
Enter the airplane wastewater tank: a succulent stew of faecal and urine samples from those entering Australia.
While CSIRO were not the first to identify the potential for airplane wastewater to be used as a disease surveillance tool, there have been relatively few studies into the concept to date.
The new paper from CSIRO seized the opportunity during the global pandemic and collected lavvy wastewater samples from 44 long haul international repatriation flights to Darwin between November 2020 and September 2021.
Aggregated wastewater samples – up to 1 litre per flight – were initially used for covid screening before being “archived” in a laboratory freezer.
The samples were defrosted and screened for faecal indicator bacteria, several human faecal/urine markers, putative ESKAPE pathogens (Salmonella spp., Mycobacterium spp., Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa) and clinically relevant antibiotic resistance genes using high-throughput quantitative PCR.
While the researchers initially feared that the use of disinfectants in aircraft lavatories could potentially degrade nucleic acids and hinder the detection of microbial markers in the wastewater, the bacteria proved “resilient enough to persist” over the duration of the long-haul flights.
Broadly, the study worked, in that pathogens and antimicrobial resistance genes were indeed identified among the wastewater samples.
“Aircraft wastewater surveillance could complement global health efforts, offering early warnings of emerging [antimicrobial resistance] threats and informing targeted interventions,” the researchers wrote.
So the next time you find yourself sweating it out in the plane dunny on the redeye out of Vancouver – just remember your turd could be forming the next link in the chainmail of Australia’s defence against antibiotic resistance.
Inspiring!
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