Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Investigation of the presence of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in groundwater of Jazan area, Saudi Arabia

Abdul Jabbar Al-Rajab¹ , Mohammed AI Bratty², Othman Hakami², Hassan A Alhazmi^2,4, Mukul Sharma¹, Desam Nagarjuna Reddy¹

¹Centre for Environmental Research and Studies; ²Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Jazan University, Jazan, Saudi Arabia; ³Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Jazan University, Jazan, Saudi Arabia; ⁴Substance Abuse Research Centre, Jazan University, Jazan, Saudi Arabia.

For correspondence:- Abdul Al-Rajab Email: alrajab@hotmail.com Tel:+16137101519

Accepted: 19 September 2018 Published: 31 October 2018

Citation: Al-Rajab AJ, Bratty MA, Hakami O, Alhazmi HA, Sharma M, Reddy DN. Investigation of the presence of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in groundwater of Jazan area, Saudi Arabia. Trop J Pharm Res 2018; 17(10):2061-2066 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v17i10.24

© 2018 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the possible occurrence of some selected pharmaceutical compounds in the groundwater of Jazan area, Saudi Arabia.

Methods: Water samples from 46 wells were collected from different sites covering Jazan area of Saudi Arabia between February and March 2017. These samples were first analyzed to investigate the presence of eleven drugs mostly used in the study area. Thereafter, samples were subjected to liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) by direct injection and external standard calibration.

Results: Despite the low detection limit (0.001 - 0.02 µg/L) applied to the investigated compounds with a variety chemical groups (acetylsalicylic acid, paracetamol, ibuprofen, metronidazole, caffeine, olmesartan, omeprazole, nifedipine, diclofenac sodium, glibenclamide and loratidine), none of these compounds was detected in any of the analyzed samples.

Conclusion: The main source of environmental contamination with pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) is wastewater. The results obtained reveal the absence of groundwater contamination by these compounds in Jazan area. However, further extended investigations and monitoring are recommended.

Keywords: Pharmaceuticals, Groundwater, Wastewater, Pollution, Personal care products, Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometer (LC-MS/MS)