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Environmental Pollutants and Contaminants of Emerging Concern: An African Perspective
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This review examines contaminants of emerging concern in Africa — including pharmaceuticals, plastics, pesticides, and personal care products — documenting their presence in sediments, sludge, drinking water, and surface water across the continent. The authors highlight growing evidence of ecotoxicological impacts and call for stronger monitoring and regulatory responses in African contexts.
This review focuses on the environmental pollutants and contaminants of emerging concern in Africa. There is increasing reports and identification of ecotoxicological impact of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs), such as plastic, pharmaceutical products, modern pesticides, and personal care products, in terrestrial and aquatic environment within Africa. Identification of CECs, including pharmaceuticals, plastic wastes, pesticide residues, fungal toxins, and personal care products, have been documented in African region including in sediments, sludge, treated drinking water, surface water, wastewater, groundwater, land, solid deposits, etc. Some of the emerging pollutants of concern to environment and humans include lindane, heptachlor, endrin, endosulfan, dieldrin, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), benzaldehyde, aldrin, bisphenol A, phthalates, bisphenol S, etc. There is need for more studies to identify and quantify the existing and more emerging pollutants.
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Emerging contaminants in Africa: A unifying challenge and the path to sustainable management
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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.
Overview of African water resources contamination by contaminants of emerging concern
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This review documented contamination of African water resources by pharmaceuticals, endocrine disruptors, pesticides, PFAS, and microplastics across all five continental regions, finding widespread contamination even in rural and groundwater sources. The authors highlighted major gaps in monitoring infrastructure and treatment capacity needed to protect African populations from these emerging contaminants.
Pollutants of Emerging Concern in Urban Wastewater Impacted Aquatic Environments and Management Recommendations
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This review identifies pharmaceuticals, microplastics, endocrine disruptors, and other emerging pollutants in urban wastewater-impacted African waterways, highlighting inadequate treatment infrastructure and recommending management strategies to protect aquatic ecosystems and public health.
Emerging Pollutants in Uganda: A Systematic Review
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This systematic review catalogs emerging pollutants in Uganda, including pharmaceuticals, pesticides, heavy metals, and microplastics, found across different environmental settings. Rapid urbanization and industrial growth in the country have introduced these contaminants into water and soil, posing growing risks to public health.
Emerging contaminants in the water bodies of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA): A critical review
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This review surveys emerging contaminants in water bodies across the Middle East and North Africa region, including pharmaceuticals, personal care products, pesticides, and microplastics. Researchers found that data on these contaminants is sparse and unevenly distributed across the region, with some countries having almost no monitoring data. The study emphasizes the urgent need for comprehensive water quality monitoring programs to assess the environmental and health risks posed by these pollutants in MENA water resources.
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When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.