The use of antibiotics in China has been so great that the country's rivers and water bodies are being damamged by the production of these drugs. 

According to South China Morning Post, the excessive use of antibiotics in humans and animals has caused so much damage to the rivers because of the overflowing toxic waste that comes from manufacturing plants who formulates these antibiotics.

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In 2013 alone, mainland China reportedly consumed almost 162,00 tonnes of antibiotics, with a record number of 200 varieties of the said medicine. Researchers noted that the consumed antibiotics was almost evenly divided into human and animals. The Pearl River was also dubbed as "soup of antibiotics" by the country's top science academy because of its high level content of medicine concentration.

Noting how bacterias thrive on antibiotic overuse, doctors and researchers are worried that someday, these antibiotics will not be as effective as they are intended to. Out of the 58 river basins tested for medicine content, the waterways of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei were listed as the top three most affected provinces, where rivers were affected by high levels of antibiotic.

According to Ying Guanggou of Guanzhou Institute of Geochemistry "The usage of antibiotics in China is very high, it's almost half of the world's usage when we compare it with international studies."

BMJ, on the other hand, reported that the misuse of antibiotic cannot at all help in curing sickness, instead, it can reportedly lead to total damage in the body, allergic reaction and drug resistance.

Amoxicillin and Florfenicol were among the 36 kinds of antibiotics tested, and with mainland China consuming 97,200 tonnes of antibiotic in 2013, 53,800 tonnes ended up destroying and affecting the environment in the form of waste water treatments and urine. The Northern rivers of mainland China has been one of the most affected rivers all the way to the waterways of Hongkong.

While antibiotics are not considered to be primary lifesavers, they are considered as a universal remedy in almost all primary health cares in mainland China.

According to statistics, a Chinese person consumes about 10 times the normal rate recorded in the United States. 

TagsScience, antibiotics, china antibiotics