Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global public health problem posing critical challenges within the human, animal and environmental domains of the One Health spectrum. Environmental contamination with AMR in particular is placed at the top of six emerging issues of environmental concern currently facing mankind (UNEP, 2017). However, AMR surveillance in the environment currently lags behind the human and animal sectors (Baekkeskov et al., 2020), especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) where the heavy burden of AMR in the environment poses a serious challenge. The aquatic ecosystem in LMIC especially carries a high burden of AMR contamination (Laffite et al., 2016; Adelowo et al., 2020) mostly related to widespread pollution. They thus play important roles as reservoir and pathway for AMR transmission (Amarasiri et al., 2020) at the human-environment interface.

The world's oceans and its vast coastlines and beaches are important hotspots for human recreation (Manero, 2023). However, they are also emerging as important reservoirs of AMR (Carney et al., 2019), especially when impacted by anthropogenic activities (Overbey et al., 2015). Recreational exposure to AMR at coastal beaches has been previously documented in several parts of the world (Blaak et al., 2014; Leonard et al., 2018; Oyelade et al., 2018a, 2018b) creating urgent needs for active surveillance of AMR occurrence at public beaches for beach users' safety. Unfortunately, regular monitoring of recreational beaches for AMR contamination is lacking in many LMICs. Where available, they are mostly limited to phenotypic detection of resistance in limited bacterial species. Such approach does not provide information about the genetic basis of resistance, their association with MGE and occurrence of virulence genes (VG). Thus, important information necessary for the evaluation of the risk associated with the presence of antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB), potential transmission of their ARG cargoes and potential pathogenicity at the water-human interface is often not available.

Previously (Oyelade et al., 2018a, 2018b), we reported the isolation of beta-lactam resistant bacteria at four recreational beaches (Lekki, Eleko, Takwa-Bay and Badagry) on the shoreline of the Atlantic Ocean in Lagos, southwestern Nigeria, and the detection of blaNDM-1 among a cohort of Vibrio species isolated from the beaches (Oyelade et al., 2018b). In this study, we sequenced the genomes of 14 beta-lactams resistant Enterobacteriaceae isolated from water and wet-sand collected from the beaches to provide additional insights into beach contamination with clinically relevant AMR and the risks posed by such to beach users and the general public focusing on: (i) the complete resistome of the isolates (ii) ARG association with MGE as indicator of potential transmission at the water-human interface, and (iii) occurrence of VG as indicator of potential pathogenicity among the sequenced isolates.