Municipal wastewaters can generally provide real-time information on drug consumption, the incidence of specific diseases, or establish exposure to certain agents and determine some lifestyle consequences. From this point of view, wastewater-based epidemiology represents a modern diagnostic tool for describing the health status of a certain part of the population in a specific region. Hospital wastewater is a complex mixture of pharmaceuticals, illegal drugs, and their metabolites as well as different susceptible and antibiotic-resistant microorganisms, including viruses. Many studies pointed out that wastewater from healthcare facilities (including hospital wastewater), significantly contributes to higher loads of micropollutants, including bacteria and viruses, in municipal wastewater. In addition, such a mixture can increase the selective pressure on bacteria, thus contributing to the development and dissemination of antimicrobial resistance. Because many pharmaceuticals, drugs, and microorganisms can pass through wastewater treatment plants without any significant change in their structure and toxicity and enter surface waters, treatment technologies need to be improved. This short review summarizes the recent knowledge from studies on micropollutants, pathogens, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and viruses (including SARS-CoV-2) in wastewater from healthcare facilities. It also proposes several possibilities for improving the wastewater treatment process in terms of efficiency as well as economy.
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
- přehledy MeSH
This work compares the prevalence of antibiotic resistant coliform bacteria in hospital wastewater effluents in Slovak (SR) and Czech Republic (ČR). It also describes selected antibiotic resistant isolates in view of resistance mechanism and virulence factor. The highest number of multidrug resistant bacteria was detected in samples from the hospital in Valašské Meziříčí (ČR). More than half of resistant isolates showed multidrug resistance phenotype as well as strong ability to form biofilm. In 42% of isolates efflux pump overproduction was detected together with tetA and tetE genes. The production of extended-spectrum β-lactamases in coliform isolates was encoded mainly by blaTEM, blaCTX-M-2 and blaCTX-M-8/25 genes. About 62% of resistants contained a combination of two or more extended spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBL) genes. Our results strengthen the fact that hospital effluents are a source of multidrug resistant bacteria which can spread their resistance genes to other bacteria in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Accordingly, hospital wastewater should be better treated before it enters urban sewerage.
- MeSH
- antibakteriální látky farmakologie MeSH
- beta-laktamasy genetika MeSH
- mikrobiální testy citlivosti MeSH
- mnohočetná bakteriální léková rezistence účinky léků genetika MeSH
- nemocnice MeSH
- odpadní voda * MeSH
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
- práce podpořená grantem MeSH
- Geografické názvy
- Česká republika MeSH
