#PATHOLOGICAL WASTE INCLUDES MANUAL#

Medical wastes require careful disposal and containment before collection and consolidation for treatment. See CDC’s Ebola Virus Disease website for current information on how Ebola virus is transmitted.

Interim Guidance for Environmental Infection Control in Hospitals for Ebola Virus.

Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations for Hospitalized Patients with Known or Suspected Ebola Virus Disease in U.S.

Update: The recommendations in this guideline for Ebola has been superseded by these CDC documents: Management of Regulated Medical Waste in Health-Care Facilities

#PATHOLOGICAL WASTE INCLUDES MANUAL#

The EPA’s Manual for Infectious Waste Management identifies and categorizes other specific types of waste generated in health-care facilities with research laboratories that also require handling precautions. State regulations also address the degree or amount of contamination (e.g., blood-soaked gauze) that defines the discarded item as a regulated medical waste. The categorization of these wastes has generated the term “regulated medical waste.” This term emphasizes the role of regulation in defining the actual material and as an alternative to “infectious waste,” given the lack of evidence of this type of waste’s infectivity. Federal, state, and local guidelines and regulations specify the categories of medical waste that are subject to regulation and outline the requirements associated with treatment and disposal.

Although any item that has had contact with blood, exudates, or secretions may be potentially infective, treating all such waste as infective is neither practical nor necessary.

2 Moreover, the risk of either injury or infection from certain sharp items (e.g., needles and scalpel blades) contaminated with blood also must be considered. 2 Health-care facility medical wastes targeted for handling and disposal precautions include microbiology laboratory waste (e.g., microbiologic cultures and stocks of microorganisms), pathology and anatomy waste, blood specimens from clinics and laboratories, blood products, and other body-fluid specimens.

The most practical approach to medical waste management is to identify wastes that represent a sufficient potential risk of causing infection during handling and disposal and for which some precautions likely are prudent. Precisely defining medical waste on the basis of quantity and type of etiologic agents present is virtually impossible. 1402–1405 Public concerns have resulted in the promulgation of federal, state, and local rules and regulations regarding medical waste management and disposal. Aesthetic and emotional considerations (originating during the early years of the HIV epidemic) have, however, figured into the development of treatment and disposal policies, particularly for pathology and anatomy wastes and sharps. 1400, 1401 This statement excludes, however, sharps injuries sustained during or immediately after the delivery of patient care before the sharp is “discarded.” Therefore, identifying wastes for which handling and disposal precautions are indicated is largely a matter of judgment about the relative risk of disease transmission, because no reasonable standards on which to base these determinations have been developed. 1397, 1398 Moreover, no epidemiologic evidence suggests that traditional waste-disposal practices of health-care facilities (whereby clinical and microbiological wastes were decontaminated on site before leaving the facility) have caused disease in either the health-care setting or the general community.

1399–1402 Although hospital wastes had a greater number of different bacterial species compared with residential waste, wastes from residences were more heavily contaminated. Several studies have compared the microbial load and the diversity of microorganisms in residential wastes and wastes obtained from a variety of health-care settings. No epidemiologic evidence suggests that most of the solid- or liquid wastes from hospitals, other healthcare facilities, or clinical/research laboratories is any more infective than residential waste.

Discharging Blood, Fluids to Sanitary Sewers or Septic Tanks.

Microorganisms and biologicals identified as select agents

Management of Regulated Medical Waste in Health-Care Facilities.

Pathological waste includes