Publications by authors named "Tomas Macsek"
Article Synopsis
- Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is assessed for its reliability in estimating pharmaceutical consumption by comparing it to actual prescription data in urban areas.
- Most pharmaceuticals, like ciprofloxacin and metoprolol, showed a minimal difference (below 0.2 order of magnitude) between WBE estimates and control values, indicating good reliability, especially for sedatives.
- Seasonal patterns affected the load of specific drugs in the sewer system, but these changes did not significantly impact the reliability of WBE, suggesting it is a valid tool for estimating drug consumption despite some areas needing further research.
The presence of pharmaceuticals (PHA) and narcotics (NAR) in wastewater (WW) has attracting growing interest due to concern for aquatic environment and the possibility to exploit their presence to estimate drug consumption by population. This work aims to (i) quantify PHA and NAR in the WW of the Brno metropolitan area, (ii) determine the effectiveness of the current conventional wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), and (iii) estimate the illicit drug (ID) consumption. 23 PHA and 9 NAR were frequently detected in the untreated WW and studied for their removal.
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