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<article article-type="research-article" dtd-version="1.0" xml:lang="en"
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    <front>
        <journal-meta>
            <journal-id journal-id-type="issn">0973-7510</journal-id>
            <journal-title-group>
                <journal-title>Journal of Pure and Applied Microbiology</journal-title>
            </journal-title-group>
            <issn pub-type="epub">2581-690X</issn>
            <publisher>
                <publisher-name>DR. M.N. Khan</publisher-name>
            </publisher>
        </journal-meta>
        <article-meta>
            <article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.22207/JPAM.20.2.45</article-id>
            <title-group>
                <article-title>Persistence of Multidrug-resistant Bacteria and Resistance Genes following Tertiary Treatment of Hospital Wastewater in Malaysia</article-title>
            </title-group>
            <contrib-group>

				<contrib contrib-type="author">
                    <name>
                        <surname>Al-Hardan</surname>
                        <given-names>Hammad Naif</given-names>
                    </name>
                    <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff-1"/>
                </contrib>

				<contrib contrib-type="author">
                    <name>
                        <surname>Jasni</surname>
                        <given-names>Azmiza Syawani</given-names>
                    </name>
                    <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff-1"/>
                </contrib>

				<contrib contrib-type="author">
                    <name>
                        <surname>Abdullah</surname>
                        <given-names>Rozaini</given-names>
                    </name>
                    <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff-2"/>
                </contrib>

				<contrib contrib-type="author">
                    <name>
                        <surname>Yi</surname>
                        <given-names>Ong Xin</given-names>
                    </name>
                    <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff-2"/>
                </contrib>

				<contrib contrib-type="author">
                    <name>
                        <surname>Jamaluddin</surname>
                        <given-names>Tengku Zetty Maztura Tengku</given-names>
                    </name>
                    <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff-1"/>
                </contrib>

				<contrib contrib-type="author">
                    <name>
                        <surname>Zakariah</surname>
                        <given-names>Siti Zulaikha</given-names>
                    </name>
                    <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff-1"/>
                </contrib>
				
			</contrib-group>


			<aff id="aff-1">Department of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia.</aff>
			<aff id="aff-2">Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia.</aff>



            <pub-date publication-format="electronic" date-type="pub" iso-8601-date="2026-06-04">
                <day>04</day>
				<month>06</month>
                <year>2026</year>
            </pub-date>
            <volume></volume>
            <issue></issue>
            <fpage></fpage>
            <lpage></lpage>
            <permissions>
                <copyright-statement>Copyright &#x00A9; 2026 The Author(s)</copyright-statement>
                <copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
                <license license-type="open-access"
                    xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">
                    <license-p>This is an open access article 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.<uri
					xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
                            >https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</uri></license-p>
                </license>
            </permissions>
            <self-uri xlink:href="https://microbiologyjournal.org/persistence-of-multidrug-resistant-bacteria-and-resistance-genes-following-tertiary-treatment-of-hospital-wastewater-in-malaysia/"/>
            <abstract>
                <p>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.</p>
		</abstract>
		<kwd-group>
        <title>Keywords</title>
        <kwd>Hospital Wastewater</kwd>
        <kwd>Drug-resistance</kwd>
        <kwd>Antibiotic-resistant Bacteria</kwd>
        <kwd>Antibiotic Resistance Genes</kwd>
		</kwd-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
</article>
