Minimizing Risks of Antimicrobial Resistance Development in the Environment from a Public One Health Perspective

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a globally recognized crisis with meaningful engagement across humans, animals, and the environment as in the One Health approach. The environment is the potential source, reservoir, and transmission route of AMR, and it plays a key role in AMR development from the One Health perspective. Animal farming, hospitals, and the pharmaceutical industry are identified as the main emission sources in the environment. Minimizing emissions and determining antimicrobial emission limits are priorities in the containment of environmental AMR development. From the perspectives of environmental management and environmental engineering, some important actions to minimize risks of AMR development are summarized, including the recent progress in enhanced hydrolysis pre-treatment technology to control the development of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) during biological wastewater treatment. It is desirable to establish a holistic framework to coordinate international actions on the containment of environmental AMR development. To establish a community with a shared future for humanity, China should and could play an important role in international cooperation to cope with AMR challenges.