The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), on the occasion of World AMR Awareness Week 2025, hosted a symposium on “Wastewater Technologies to Address One Health AMR”. The timely event brought together global experts to tackle what might be the most critical health challenge of our time: antimicrobial resistance.
Setting the Stage: AMR as a One Health Threat
AMR represents one of the most significant global health threats of this century, with the potential to undermine decades of medical progress. AMR emerges when microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites evolve and no longer respond to the medicines designed to treat them. Rising resistance rates are now recorded for many of the most frequently used antibiotics, with several priority pathogens showing resistance levels exceeding 50% in some regions, compromising the effectiveness of standard treatments.
One Health recognizes that the health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants, and the wider environment (including ecosystems) is closely linked and interdependent. It provides an integrated, unifying approach aimed at sustainably balancing and optimizing the health of people, animals and ecosystems. The One Health approach reflects the reality that human activities, agricultural and food system practices, interactions with wildlife and environmental conditions all influence the emergence and spread of diseases, including AMR.
In this context, wastewater is a major conduit for AMR spread, connecting all One Health sectors, transporting antibiotic residues and resistant microorganisms from pharmaceutical plants, hospitals, slaughterhouses, and farms into the environment. Recognizing this, WIPO and UNEP convened this event to raise awareness and connect governments, researchers, industry, and policymakers in advancing wastewater-based AMR solutions.
Opening the symposium, Ms. Amy Dietterich, Director of WIPO’s Global Challenges Division, stressed the scale of the “silent pandemic,” which already contributes to nearly five million deaths worldwide each year. She noted that while the collective response has focused on hospital protocols and agricultural practices, it has overlooked a critical pathway: our environment, and in particular, wastewater.
In the first session, Dr. Nada Hanna, Pharmaceutical and AMR Expert from UNEP, highlighted the growing recognition of the environment’s role in the development, transmission, and spread of AMR, as reflected in the commitments of the UNGA 2024 Political Declaration on the High-level Meeting on AMR and the ongoing update of the Global Action Plans to tackle AMR (GAP-AMR). She underscored the need for a multisectoral One Health approach, including stronger environmental governance, improved wastewater management and coordination, and the advancement of environmental surveillance, research, and innovation. Dr. Nada also emphasized UNEP’s efforts to mainstream wastewater considerations into One Health policies and projects.
Mr. Siddhartha Prakash, Head of WIPO’s Global Health Unit, outlined the critical role of a wide range of detection and treatment technologies for addressing the One Health elements of AMR and the importance of intellectual property (IP) in enabling their development and deployment. He stressed that some of these emerging technologies have been tested in developing country settings and need to be linked to country AMR projects and policies. He emphasized that while detection technologies serve as early-warning tools for identifying AMR hotspots, guiding interventions, and informing environmental and public health decision-making, treatment technologies are equally critical, as they remove, degrade, or deactivate antimicrobial residues, resistant microorganisms, and genetic material before wastewater is discharged or reused.
Turning Knowledge into Practice: Two Country Case Studies
To illustrate how countries are already responding, the symposium featured two case studies demonstrating how countries are advancing wastewater-based AMR surveillance and treatment.
- Brazil – Toward a Nationwide Surveillance Network
Prof. Ana Cristina Gales, Deputy Director of the Antimicrobial Resistance Institute of São Paulo (ARIES), Brazil, focused on how a research network for the surveillance of AMR in hospital sewage was working and the technologies used to detect and treat AMR. Using a combination of complementary detection methods, the network tracks resistant organisms and genes in both hospital and municipal wastewater. The long-term goal is to expand this model into a national surveillance system and inform environmental AMR policy development.
- India – Industry Partnerships Driving Innovation
Prof. Suraj K. Tripathy, Associate Dean at the School of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, India, shared findings on the surveillance of AMR bacteria and resistance genes in the out-flow water of wastewater treatment plants. He highlighted low-cost, off-grid treatment solutions and emphasized the value of early industry engagement and joint IP management.
These real-world examples set the stage for a panel discussion on what it takes to scale wastewater AMR solutions globally.
From Innovation to Implementation: What It Takes
A multi-stakeholder panel - featuring experts from the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank, the Zambia Environmental Management Agency, the Nanjing Tech University, the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, and WIPO examined the pathway from innovation to real-world deployment.
Moderated by Ms. Kekeletso Kao, Program Officer at WIPO’s Global Health Unit, the discussion highlighted key priorities:
- Accelerating piloting and field validation
- Addressing regulatory and capacity constraints in low-resource settings
- Strengthening financing and policy instruments
- Enhancing research–industry partnerships
- Leveraging IP, licensing, and technology transfer to support adaptation and scale-up
Insights from Panel Experts
Opening the panel discussion, Dr. Kate Medlicott, Sanitation and Wastewater Team Leader at WHO, emphasized the importance of strengthening wastewater treatment while also addressing pollution at its source. She noted that WHO will release new guidelines in 2026 to support multi-pathogen wastewater surveillance and highlighted the urgent need for innovation in agricultural and slaughterhouse wastewater management, areas she described as neglected but increasingly critical.
Building on these points, Dr. Ramesh Govindaraj, Lead Specialist for Health, Nutrition & Population at the World Bank, identified wastewater as an important area for One Health investments. He mentioned that the Bank supports AMR action through policy dialogue, multisector collaboration, financing for health and environmental projects, and analytical work. He outlined four pillars of support for One Health and AMR: strengthening resilience and security investments; using policy reform to enhance AMR action; testing innovation through the Bank’s knowledge base and scaling proven solutions; and convening all the sectors and industries together. Examples include multisectoral programs in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), such as regional initiatives in Eastern and Southern Africa that connect AMR priorities with broader One Health resilience efforts through coordinated work with institutions like IGAD and ECSA-HC.
Complementing the global policy view with national experience, Tibale Ngwata, a Fleming Fund Fellow - One Health Environmental AMR supported under the UK Department of Health and Social Care and Environmental Inspector from the Zambia Environmental Management Agency, highlighted the challenges of scaling technologies in LMICs, particularly within African contexts. She contextualized the Zambian landscape, underscoring the need for infrastructure-appropriate and capacity-responsive solutions. She further emphasized the imperative for robust environmental AMR data to inform legislative review and to support the integration of AMR parameters into routine regulatory functions, including pollution hotspot mapping and other statutory obligations. She noted that effective integration of AMR into environmental regulation requires harmonized standards, clearly delineated mandates, and alignment with existing health and environmental monitoring systems.
Shifting to technological solutions, Prof. Yongjun Zhang from Nanjing Tech University focused on the best available techniques for the removal of pharmaceuticals and antimicrobial residues from wastewater. He shared experiences with catalytic ozonation and biofiltration, noting that while catalytic ozonation offers high efficacy, it is capital- and energy-intensive and best suited to industrial or tertiary treatment. Biofiltration, he highlighted, provides a more cost-effective and operationally feasible alternative for broader application, including in resource-constrained settings.
Turning to the role of IP in scaling solutions, Prof. Suraj K. Tripathy, expanded on how IP and licensing may accelerate technology deployment. He emphasized the importance of innovators understanding user needs early, particularly regarding cost and deployment. Strong industry partnerships, he noted, bridge the gap between innovators and end users, helping to validate technologies, share risks, resources and costs, and support local manufacturing and knowledge transfer that are crucial for affordability and accessibility in LMICs. He added that “IP will play a very vital role to secure the technology and to transfer the technology to across different geographies”.
From WIPO’s viewpoint as a neutral facilitator, Mr. Amos Heng from WIPO’s Global Health team highlighted the importance of robust and clear IP frameworks in helping to facilitate the development, deployment and distribution of AMR wastewater technologies in a manner that is efficient and fair for all parties involved. “The lab to market journey of a typical AMR wastewater technology spans across multiple stages from upstream R&D to midstream licensing and technology transfer, to downstream sublicensing, distribution, and sales, and IP plays a role at every step”, he noted.
IP as Part of the Solution
IP serves as a catalyst for innovation, encouraging high-risk R&D while supporting responsible technology transfer and enabling innovations to move from prototype to implementation. Strategic IP management enables wastewater technologies to scale globally and be adapted to diverse One Health contexts facilitating equitable access and long-term sustainability. At several points throughout the symposium, speakers underscored the importance of innovation and intellectual property, central pillars of WIPO’s mandate, in enabling technologies to move from research to real-world deployment.
Looking ahead
As the symposium concluded, three priorities emerged clearly:
- Recognize wastewater technologies as central to One Health AMR action
- Invest in technologies and capacities that are already proving effective
- Leverage IP strategically to ensure global impact
The symposium marked a meaningful step toward stronger collaboration across governments, researchers, industry, and international organizations. Collective action will help to protect the health of people, animals, and ecosystems worldwide, and reinforce IP’s role in advancing innovation for global public health.
In 2026, WIPO will release an AMR Wastewater Report to support policymakers, funders, and innovators with insights on scalable, IP-enabled wastewater solutions that can be adapted to diverse resource settings.
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