The Antibiotic Resistance Profiles of Pseudomonads from Hospital Waste Water

Abstract

             With pathogens becoming increasingly resistant to multiple drugs, it is important to catalog and describe the genetic and metabolic changes that are occurring among the pathogens. Pseudomonas aeruginosa has become a problem in the medical community due to its diversity, increasingly multi-drug resistant qualities and its ability to colonize multiple environments. The goal of the study was to catalog the genetic variety and specific drug resistance compared against the stages in the effluent processing cycle. The importance of the research is to accurately evaluate the current resistance of pathogens and to create new ways to combat them and correct old practices that may not be effective the waste water treatment. This is crucial to preventing the spread of not only pathogens but increasingly multi-drug resistant pathogens and this is important in developing nations such as Brazil where a large majority of the population has no access to untreated water putting many people at risk of developing serious illnesses. The studies research reconciled with similar studies done previously and showed that while many pathogens were removed the treatment acted as more of a filter against the least resistant, allowing the most resistant strains of Ps. aeruginosa to pass into the aquatic environment. This study has identified the current most effective antimicrobials, but has not given a strong or lasting answer against the constantly changing resistance of microorganisms. Current problems are that few effective treatment methods are available to combat evolving pathogens and the ones that are effective are not available to developing nations.