Be careful with the hospital sink drain. A new this week shows that these drains can be a common source of terrifying and drug resistant pathogens, even after deep cleaning.
Researchers from the University of the Balearic Islands in Spain directed the study, published Friday Borders in microbiology. They analyzed bacteria collected from drains around a single hospital well maintained and unearthed a rich diversity of problematic microbes, including superbacteria that can resist several antibiotics at the same time. The findings suggest that the arrest of the spread of these bacteria within hospitals is even more difficult than expected, the researchers say.
Antibiotic resistance is one of the most pressing public health problems of our time. Is already estimated That these infections kill at least 1.27 million people worldwide, including 35,000 Americans per year. And studies have projected that drug -resistant bacteria will eventually coincide or even exceed the annual death cancer number (approximately 10 million deaths a year) in the coming decades.
Hospitals and other medical care centers are common reproduction local resistance resistance for several reasons. Antimicrobials are widely used in these places, directly feeding the resistance. Patients also have a poorer health than usual, which makes it easier for infections to prosper and spread as forest fires among people. Given these known risks, hospitals and their employees routinely take measures to mitigate antibiotic resistance, which often includes the deep cleaning of areas where bacteria can delay, such as plumbing systems and drainage drains.
The researchers wanted to prove how effective these protection measures are really. They analyzed the drains of the sink of a single university hospital on the island of Mallorca that was built in 2001. According to the researchers, the hospital routinely cleanses its sinks and drains with whitening, the disinfects even more with steam and pressurized chemicals every two weeks, and treats its pipe with chlorine once a year.
From February 2022 to February 2023, they collected (using cotton swabs) and genetically sequenced bacterial samples of six sink drains in five rooms: two units of the UCI, one for hematology, short stays and general medicine; and a microbiology laboratory.
In total, they identified 67 bacterial species different from drains. While there were some differences between the rooms, all drains contained a wide range of bacteria, including the new UCI unit that came into operation the previous year. The researchers also isolated bacteria strains commonly associated with serious infections acquired in the hospital, including Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniaeand Staphylococcus aureus. And although there were flows and flows in the types of bacteria found in these drains throughout the year, the cleaning procedures used by the hospital did not seem to have much effect on their general diversity.
“Here we show that the sinking of the Drena hospital to the bacterial populations of the hosts that change over time, despite the impeccable cleaning protocols in the private hospital we saw,” said Senior researcher Margarita Gomila, professor at the University of The Balearic Islands, in a Frontiers Frontiers statement, editors of the study. “The bacteria we find can originate in many sources, patients, medical personnel and even the environment surrounding the hospital. Once established in the sink drains, they can spread outwards, which raises significant risks for immunocompromised patients.
The researchers also found that most samples contained at least some bacteria that were resistant to multiple antibiotics, including strains of P. aeruginosa and K. pneumoniae. In some bacteria, they also identified a worrying gene that promotes resistance to carbapenems, a new class of antibiotics often used as a last resort treatment for infections that have stopped responding to other medications.
Obviously, researchers do not say that hospitals should stop cleaning their drains. But given how good these bacteria are thriving even in the face of deep cleaning, it is clear that it should be done more to stop or at least slow down the proliferation of superbacteria within these risky environments.
“Cleaning protocols are important and should be applied frequently, especially in rooms that remain separate precisely to delay the spread of potentially harmful bacteria. But to get to the bottom of the problem, it is essential to study the source of these bacteria and their transmission routes, “said principal researcher José Laço, a doctoral student in Gomila’s laboratory, in a statement.