ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

Research Article | Open Access
Hammad Naif Al-Hardan1, Azmiza Syawani Jasni1, Rozaini Abdullah2, Ong Xin Yi2, Tengku Zetty Maztura Tengku Jamaluddin1 and Siti Zulaikha Zakariah1
1Department of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia.
2Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia.
Article Number: 11164 | © The Author(s). 2026
J Pure Appl Microbiol. 2026;20(2):1559-1570. https://doi.org/10.22207/JPAM.20.2.45
Received: 20 November 2025 | Accepted: 18 February 2026 | Published online: 04 June 2026
Issue online: June 2026
Abstract

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB) in hospital wastewater pose serious environmental and public health risks due to their potential to persist through treatment processes and disseminate resistance genes. This study investigated the occurrence and persistence of ARB and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in the wastewater treatment system of a teaching hospital in Malaysia. Samples were collected from five treatment stages across two sampling periods and analyzed using culture-based isolation, 16S rRNA gene sequencing, and antimicrobial susceptibility testing according to CLSI and EUCAST guidelines. A total of 28 isolates consisting of 11 different bacterial species were identified,  including representative species such as Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Aeromonas hydrophila, and members of the Stenotrophomonas maltophilia complex. K. pneumoniae exhibited multidrug-resistance and mutations in the gyrA gene (S83R, D87N), associated with fluoroquinolone resistance. Detected ARGs included blaSHV, blaCTX-M, blaTEM, blaNDM, and gyrA. The persistence of resistant bacteria and ARGs in the final effluent indicates incomplete elimination by tertiary treatment. These findings highlight hospital wastewater as a critical reservoir for antimicrobial resistance and underscore, from a One Health perspective, the need for integrated monitoring and improved wastewater treatment strategies to limit environmental dissemination of resistance determinants.

Keywords

Hospital Wastewater, Drug-resistance, Antibiotic-resistant Bacteria, Antibiotic Resistance Genes

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© The Author(s) 2026. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, sharing, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.