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- NEW YORK (Reuters
Health) - For the first time, workers at a medical waste plant appear to
have contracted tuberculosis (TB) from working with contaminated waste,
according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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- Inadequate safety measures at the plant put the workers
at risk for the potentially deadly lung infection. The medical waste--collected
from hospitals, clinical laboratories and medical and dental clinics--was
shredded, blown and compacted before it was finally decontaminated.
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- The investigators also found equipment failures, inadequate
training, and sub-par protective gear at the facility, according to a report
in the October 4th issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.
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- TB is the most deadly infection in the world, killing
some 3 million people each year. While it was once thought to be controlled
in developed nations, TB has rebounded in the US. Healthcare workers comprise
one of the groups at high risk of the airborne infection.
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- But there is no way of knowing yet whether medical waste
workers are also at increased TB risk, Dr. Kammy R. Johnson told Reuters
Health.
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- ``It's a largely unknown industry,'' she said in an interview.
While medical waste facilities must meet local environmental regulations,
little is known about the safety of the workers inside, she pointed out.
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- Johnson and her colleagues do know, however, that about
half of all medical labs in the state of Washington send viable TB cultures
to waste treatment plants, despite CDC recommendations that they decontaminate
such waste before shipping it out. In light of the current findings, Johnson
said, the CDC is now advising waste treatment facilities to refuse contaminated
lab waste.
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- The investigators found conditions at the waste facilities
that likely caused the three workers' infections. Processing equipment
worked in such a way that when it became clogged, air particles blew back
out toward employees. Two of the infected workers were not required to
wear protective respiratory gear.
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- ``Basically, the engineering process went awry,'' Johnson
said.
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- These findings, she noted, should reinforce for medical
labs the importance of decontaminating infectious waste before discarding
it. And, Johnson added, they should remind everyone that ``TB is still
here.''
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- SOURCE: The Journal of the American Medical Association
2000;284:1683-1688
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