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Monitoring of regional drug abuse through wastewater-based epidemiology—A critical review

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Abstract

Wastewater-based epidemiology is a new approach to monitor drug abuse. It involves collecting wastewater, analysis of residues of drugs or its metabolites in wastewater, and back-calculation of drug consumption by taking into account wastewater flow, stability of drug target residues in wastewater, and excretion rates of drugs/metabolites. Wastewater-based epidemiology has the advantages of being inexpensive and yielding more consistent and near real-time results. It has the great potential to supplement the existing drug monitoring methods. It can be used to build large-scale (regional, national, or even continental) monitoring networks that would yield spatial patterns and temporal trends in drug abuse. This paper described in detail the principle and procedures of this wastewater-based approach. Application of this approach across the globe was also reviewed. The uncertainties involved in the approach and knowledge gaps were identified. Finally, necessity, benefits, and feasibility to set up nation or province-wide monitoring networks based on wastewater analysis in China were discussed.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41371442 & 41671492).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Anti-Drug Brigade, Bureau of Public Safety, Zhongshan, 528403, China

    Lizhou Feng

  2. School of Environment and Natural Resources, Renmin University of China, Beijing, 100872, China

    Wei Zhang

  3. Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Xiqing Li

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  1. Lizhou Feng
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  2. Wei Zhang
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Feng, L., Zhang, W. & Li, X. Monitoring of regional drug abuse through wastewater-based epidemiology—A critical review. Sci. China Earth Sci. 61, 239–255 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-017-9129-x

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