BIOLOGICAL fluids, such as urine and faeces, contaminated with antimicrobials or antimicrobial-resistant (AR) microorganisms from people and animal production units (particularly as wastewater from hospitals and intensive agricultural installations) can discharge resistant bacteria in the receiving surface waters, even when treated in wastewater treatment plants. These effluents act as a pathway for the introduction of resistant bacteria into seawater thereby contaminating these environments. In addition, bacteria carrying resistance genes have the ability to spread these genes to other species via horizontal gene transfer (Costa and other 2013).

Previously only a small number of studies have investigated the presence of resistant bacteria in wild marine species (Johnson and others 1998, Thornton and others 1998, Lisle and others 2004, Lockwood and others 2006, Rose and others 2009, Barros and others 2011, Marinho and others 2013, Stewart and others 2014, Santestevan and others 2015, Prichula and others 2016). This could be because of the difficulty in obtaining samples from wild marine animals due to the migratory habits of many species.

Resistant bacteria among people are a large …