91av

Surfers seem to be gulping down antibiotic resistant superbugs in seawater, and may unwittingly be spreading them to people they know.

Resistant bacteria pose what the UK’s chief medical officer, Sally Davies, last year described as an by making it impossible to cure simple infections with standard antibiotics. In 2013, the US Centers for Disease Control warned that each year, 23,000 Americans die from untreatable infections, and 2 million are infected with increasingly resistant superbugs.

To see if contaminated seawater might be putting surfers at risk, of the University of Exeter, UK, and her team examined the stools of 143 local surfers and 130 sea-swimmers. They found E. coli bacteria that was resistant to the antibiotic cefotaxime in samples from nearly a tenth of the surfers, but in only 3 per cent of the swimmers. Previous research had found that surfers swallow around ten times as much seawater a session as swimmers.

Sewage in the sea

“We think the bacteria reach the sea mainly in sewage, including runoff from farms containing manure, and human sewage following periods of high rainfall,” says Leonard.

Because surfers are generally young, fit and healthy, they’re unlikely to be troubled themselves by any superbugs, says Leonard. The bigger worry is that they might help resistant bacteria spread and infect vulnerable people, such as the elderly. “They have the potential to pass them on, perhaps through poor hygiene or preparing food without washing their hands,” she says.

Surfers and swimmers can best avoid swallowing superbugs by staying out of the water for two days or so after heavy rain, she suggests.