Análise do descarte de medicamentos após a pandemia do COVID-19 e suas consequências sociais, ambientais e genéticas

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted the lives of the world's population in different ways, including the consumption and disposal of medicines. The presence of drugs in the environment has impacts on aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems and human health. Thus, the present work aims to describe and analyze the pattern of discarded medicines during the period of the Covid-19 pandemic and its relationship with the environment. Methodologically, this is a descriptive and comparative study based on drug data collected at the station located at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN). These drugs were classified according to the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) system to be analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. From the analysis of the results, it was found that there was an increase in the disposal of some classes of medications, where the main ones were the class of psychoanaleptics (N06), which grew by almost 700% compared to the pre-pandemic period and the class of vitamins (A11) which showed an increase of 149.43%. The results demonstrate the need to discuss measures that contribute to reducing the volume of inappropriately discarded medications.