Antibiotics, life-saving drugs used to treat some humans and animal disease conditions, persist in the environment after usage. Their unlawful usage in veterinary service for poultries, piggeries, cattle farms, aquacultures and other livestock farms continues to increase, thereby putting strain on reliable drugs to remain effective.

One of such effective antibiotics is sulfonamides, a drug group commonly used in hospitals and farms due to its effectiveness. However, a recently published study has sounded a warning signal of their increasing ineffectiveness in Oyo and Osun States.

The study, led by Dr Abimbola Adekanmbi of the Department of Microbiology, University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and published in Gene Reports, investigated hospitals and farms in both States and revealed that sulfonamide resistant genes, tools that disease-causing bacteria possess to reduce the effectiveness of sulfonamides, are now commonplace. They were found in sewage and animal wastes of hospitals and farms, with hospital wastewater and aquaculture farms also home to these germs that have evolved.

The continuous evolution of disease-causing bacteria towards sulfonamides could lead to their transfer into humans through slaughtered animals. This could further result in an economic loss on farms, increased hospital stay, poor treatment outcome or failure, and death.