Abstract
The high and sometimes inappropriate use of disinfectants and antibiotics has led to alarming levels of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and to high water and hearth pollution, which today represent major threats for public health. Furthermore, the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has deeply influenced our sanitization habits, imposing the massive use of chemical disinfectants potentially exacerbating both concerns. Moreover, super-sanitation can profoundly influence the environmental microbiome, potentially resulting counterproductive when trying to stably eliminate pathogens. Instead, environmentally friendly procedures based on microbiome balance principles, similar to what applied to living organisms, may be more effective, and probiotic-based eco-friendly sanitation has been consistently reported to provide stable reduction of both pathogens and AMR in treated-environments, compared to chemical disinfectants. Here, we summarize the results of the studies performed in healthcare settings, suggesting that such an approach may be applied successfully also to non-healthcare environments, including the domestic ones, based on its effectiveness, safety, and negligible environmental impact.
Highlights
Environmental pollution and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are major public health challenges of our time
According to the European Centre Disease and Control (ECDC), each year in Europe at least 4 million people catch an antibiotic resistance infection, leading to over 40,000 deaths [1], and WHO estimated at least 10 million deaths within 2050, if no concrete global action is taken against AMR as soon as possible [2]
Consistent with this, several countries have introduced and developed policies to reduce the use of antibiotics both in the healthcare and non-healthcare settings, applying the so-called “One health” approach [4], and supporting surveillance programs and improvement of environmental hygiene to prevent the spread of MDR microbes [5,6]
Summary
Environmental pollution and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are major public health challenges of our time. The emergency management of the current pandemic has mandatorily imposed a massive use of chemical disinfectants in both the healthcare and non-healthcare environments, in the attempt to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission, and this has impacted negatively on both the environmental pollution and the AMR spread, as reportedly evidenced [3,7]. For many years cleaning alone has been proposed and used effectively for hygienization purposes in the hospital environment [21], suggesting that the massive use of high-level disinfectants in the community or domestic environments may not be needed This in light of the SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility to common detergents, such as sodium laureth sulphate [22], and of 2022, the10,recognized.
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