Strongest Antibiotics from Hospitals in Wastewater

By Diana Cazares

Figure 1. This figure illustrates the three different locations along the wastewater stream where samples were taken from.  It also lists the 23 enterobacterales that produce carbapenemase. 

Where do those super antibiotics go when the human body flushes it out? What about the antimicrobial resistant bacteria? Carbonpenum is a class of strong antibiotics that is used only when no other antibiotic works.   Carbapenemase producing enterobacterales are gram negative bacteria that can break down Carbonpenums. Research was carried out by Cahill and colleagues to test Ireland effluent from a hospital, as well as the effluent before and after the hospital wastewater.  The samples taken along the effluent stream were cultured, isolated and tested against 15 different antibiotics.  64 were non- susceptible to carbonpenums, 23 made carbapenemase. There is an increasing amount of cases every year of people needing to use last resort antibiotics.  This leads to higher densities of antimicrobial resistant bacteria that are in effluent that make their way to the treatment plant. Waste water treatment plants remove some waste but are not sophisticated enough to remove hospital waste. The contaminated effluent is moved out to the environment to be used for anything from water supply to the household to irrigation.  This can cause wider exposure to the public and to bacteria in the environment and worsen the cycle.

Original Article:

Cahill N, O’Connor L, Mahon B, Varley A, McGrath E, Ryan P et al. Hospital effluent: A reservoir for carbapenemase producing Enterobacterales? Science of the total Environment 2019; 672: 618-624.