Abstract
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB) are becoming more prevalent in the environment and are efficiently disseminating through contaminated wastewater resulting in resistome cycling. This chapter compares the bacterial profile of hospital effluents collected from rural, urban, and delta regions of West Bengal, India. Comparative metagenomics analysis identified pathogenic bacterial genera like pseudomonas, escherichia, staphylococcus, lactobacillus, prevotella, acinetobacter across the samples. Delta sample showed highest abundance of pseudomonas whereas rural sample had lower titre of all the common bacterial genera. Urban sample reflected more diversity of different genera in terms of abundance. Pathogenic load prediction revealed significant occurrence of diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, liver cirrhosis, ulcerative colitis in the disease network. This chapter proposes a monitoring programme for assessing wastewater health using a combination of culture independent and culture-dependent molecular techniques in order to prevent the spread of pollutants in tropical environments.
TopIntroduction
A Well-developed sewage infrastructure, efficient wastewater treatment, and availability of drinking water are just a few of the basic requirements for maintaining and improving the public health (Bürgmann et al., 2018). Water management systems around the world are confronted with a huge issue of contamination of water supplies. One of the few reasons behind this contamination is lack of proper sanitary infrastructure which pollutes the environment and pervades all societal processes leading to human health risks that in turn can reduce overall developmental potential. According to the United Nations, about 80 percent of sewage is discharged in the adjoining aquatic bodies without any treatment (UN WWAP (United Nations World Water Assessment Programme), 2017). Animal excreta, variety of biomolecules, decomposition products, sands, grits, natural and synthetic organic substances from industrial sources, various micronutrients, macronutrients, heavy metals, traces of antibiotics are the basic contents of domestic, industrial and hospital effluents (Holmberg, 2019; Ajiboye et al., 2021; Hassan et al., 2020). Hospital wastes are in constant limelight as these include antibiotic residues such as Oxytetracycline, Tetracycline, Ciprofloxacin, Fluoroquinolones, Sulfonamides, Macrolides, Trimethoprim, disinfectants, anaesthetics, lipid regulators, radioactive markers, organic matters, excreta from patients and many more (Hassan et al., 2020; Ngigi et al., 2019; Thai et al., 2018). Additionally, various kinds of pathogenic microbial strains can be found in wastewater (Yasir, 2021).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Pathogenic Load: A measure of the amounts of microbes in an environmental sample that can cause infections. It has a direct correlation to the severity of infectious diseases.
Outbreak Response: Set of actions such as proper hygiene, contact tracing, mapping of disease clusters, physical distancing taken in an emergency basis to cease the spread of a disease.
Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria (ARB): Bacteria that have changed their properties from being antibiotic-sensitive to antibiotic-resistant.
Illumina Sequencing: A sequencing platform widely used to generate DNA sequences which are generated in small clusters using sequencing by synthesis approach in designated flow cells.
Hospital Effluent: Solids and associated wastewaters containing antibiotic residues, disinfectants, anaesthetics, organic matters, heavy metals, excreta from patients, discharged into the sewage system from clinical facilities.
Wastewater Monitoring: Surveillance of municipal and clinical sludges in order to assess wastewater health, which is linked to community wellbeing.
Metagenomics Analysis: The study of environmental samples using genetic techniques aiding microbial profiling from a mixed sample.