Chief Investigator:

Dr. DENG Wenjing

Project Year:

2018-2019

Description:

As one group of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), there’s growing evidence of the long-term health problems linked to too much exposure to antibiotics. Not only does the development and spread of ARGs (antibiotic resistant genes) make the drugs becoming less effective as bacteria becoming resistant to existing medicines, but also antibiotics are changing our bodies, particular those of young children, linking to Type-2 Diabetes and obesity. Driven by increasing use in animal industry, the production and usage of antibiotics has grown up rapidly. A part of antibiotics are left in meat, especially in chicken, pork, cultured fish and milk, which heavily consumed by Hong Kong population, even in drinking water. Results of our previous work and recent monitoring studies suggested widespread occurrence of antibiotics in river water of Hong Kong. Although antibiotics can pose potential threats to human health, most work has been focused on investigating the occurrence and fate of antibiotics in sewage and aquatic environment. The current human health associated with antibiotics may be substantially underestimated. Very limited researches were on the antibiotic residues in food and drinking water, as well as the long-term low-dose exposure to antibiotics with human health, especially with children who are more sensitive to antibiotics. In view of that human exposed to antibiotics mainly from food an drinking water besides medicine therapy, the present study is therefore proposed to develop methods for identifying and quantifying of veterinary antibiotics residues in food (chicken, pork, cultured fish and milk) and drinking water in Hong Kong, and to explore the association between the contaminants with children’s risk of obesity.