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Emerging contaminants in Africa: A unifying challenge and the path to sustainable management
Summary
This review pulls together what we know about "emerging contaminants" — everyday pollutants like drug residues, pesticides, industrial chemicals, and microplastics — building up in Africa's air, water, and soil faster than they can be tracked or regulated. The problem: there's not enough monitoring or research happening to know how much of this stuff is out there or how it's affecting people's health, which makes it hard to protect communities from potential risks. The authors suggest a roadmap — better testing tools, stronger regulations, and treating human, animal, and environmental health as connected — to close this gap before it becomes a bigger public health issue.
Emerging contaminants (ECs) have become a pervasive yet under-characterized threat to environmental integrity and public health across Africa. Rapid urbanization, industrial expansion, evolving consumption patterns, and inadequate waste management infrastructures are intensifying the release of pharmaceuticals, personal care products, pesticides, industrial chemicals, and microplastics into air, water, soil, and biota. Despite growing global attention, Africa remains a critical data-poor region, limiting the ability to assess risks, track transboundary pollution, or design evidence-based interventions. This review synthesizes current knowledge on the occurrence, sources, and ecological and human health implications of ECs across the continent, highlighting major geographic and sectoral hotspots in terms of research effort and output. It identifies the structural challenges underpinning the persistent management gap, including fragmented regulatory frameworks, limited analytical capacity, uneven monitoring coverage, and socio-economic constraints. To address these barriers, we propose a multi-pronged pathway toward sustainable EC management grounded in four complementary pillars: (i) strategic investments to fill data and monitoring gaps, (ii) context-appropriate adoption of advanced materials and treatment technologies for EC detection and remediation, (iii) strengthened and harmonized governance across regional economic communities, and (iv) a “One Health” approach that integrates environmental, human, and animal health considerations. Together, these elements outline an actionable, continent-specific roadmap that aligns with Africa's development aspirations while safeguarding ecosystems and public health.