LAUSR

The use of fluoroquinolones for the treatment of infections in humans and animals has increased in Argentina, concurrently with the possibility of finding them in large amount in water bodies. In the present work, the occurrence and associated ecological risk of five fluoroquinolones were investigated in rivers and farm wastewaters of San Luis, Santa Fe, Córdoba, Entre Ríos and Buenos Aires provinces of Argentina by high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to fast-scanning fluorescence detection and ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled to triple quadrupole mass spectrometry detection. The maximum concentrations of ciprofloxacin, enrofloxacin, ofloxacin, enoxacin and difloxacin found in wastewater were 1.14, 11.9, 1.78, 22.1 and 14.2 μg L-1 , respectively. In the case of river samples, only enrofloxacin was found at a concentration of 0.97 μg L-1 . The individual risk of aquatic organisms associated with water pollution due to fluoroquinolones was higher in bacteria, cyanobacteria, algae, plant and anuran than in crustaceae and fish with, in some cases, risk quotients higher than 1. The proportion of samples classified as high risk was 87.5% for ofloxacin, 63.5% for enrofloxacin, 57.1% for ciprofloxacin and 25% for enoxacin. These studies suggested that the prevalence of fluoroquinolones in the water could be potentially risky for the aquatic ecosystem, and harmful to biodiversity. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.