As reported in recent articles in this journal and others, hospital wastewater plumbing
systems (WPS) are increasingly being highlighted as an important source of nosocomial
infections [
[1]
,
[2]
]. Potential interventions to mitigate these risks include changes in patient management
through to engineering solutions and modifications to plumbing infrastructure, with
recent calls to improve building guidance to mitigate the impact of suboptimal designs
on patients and healthcare staff [
[3]
]. The WPS is a complex interlinked system of pipework that is intermittently filled
with water containing a multitude of solutes and solids. The interface between this
system and the environments we occupy is within sink traps, which connect sinks to
waste flow in the WPS periphery, preventing the flow of gases from the sewer to the
sink and surrounding environment. Sink traps in particular become heavily colonized
with (and act as a reservoir for) opportunistically pathogenic bacteria such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter baumannii, Klebsiella spp., Citro-bacter spp., Enterobacter spp. and Serratia marcescens [
[2]
].To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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References
- The sink splash zone.J Hosp Infect. 2023 Mar 3; (2023 Mar 3;S0195-6701(23)00063–4 [Epub ahead of print]): 63-64
- Are sink drainage systems a reservoir for hospital-acquired gammaproteobacteria colonization and infection? A systematic review.Open Forum Infect Dis. 2020; 8
- Aspects and problems associated with the water services to be considered in intensive care units.J Infect Prev. 2023; 24: 60-64
- Diversity changes of microbial communities into hospital surface environments.J Infect Chemother. 2017; 23: 439-445
- Real-time diagnostic analysis of MinION™-based metagenomic sequencing in clinical microbiology evaluation: a case report.JA Clin Rep. 2019; 5: 24
- Nanopore-based metagenomics analysis reveals prevalence of mobile antibiotic and heavy metal resistome in wastewater.Ecotoxicology. 2021; 30: 1572-1585
- Ultrafast and cost-effective pathogen identification and resistance gene detection in a clinical setting using nanopore flongle sequencing.Front Microbiol. 2022; 13822402
- Improving the diagnosis of bacterial infections: evaluation of 16S rRNA nanopore metagenomics in culture-negative samples.Front Microbiol. 2022; 13943441
Article info
Publication history
Published online: April 17, 2023
Accepted:
April 13,
2023
Received:
April 5,
2023
Publication stage
In Press Journal Pre-ProofIdentification
Copyright
© 2023 The Healthcare Infection Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
