News
– During the event held at the Parc Taulí University Hospital, experts in microbiology, hospital management, and innovation discussed the challenges and solutions to curb the spread of antimicrobial resistance within the healthcare sector
– The hospital will host a pioneering on-site treatment system designed to eliminate antibiotics, bacteria, and resistant genes from the facility’s effluents
The European project LIFE GENESYS brought together experts in microbiology, hospital management, and innovation last Friday at the Parc Taulí University Hospital in Sabadell to address the high presence of antibiotics in hospital wastewater, which promotes the proliferation of hard-to-eliminate bacteria and resistant genes.
During the event, participants discussed the main challenges in curbing the spread of antimicrobial resistance within the healthcare sector, and the GENESYS technology was presented — a system designed to eliminate antibiotics, resistant bacteria, and associated resistance genes directly at the source of hospital wastewater, thus preventing them from reaching urban wastewater treatment plants.
Hospitals, where antibiotics are widely used, are a key source of antimicrobial resistance. Such resistance poses a risk both to human health — as it compromises the effectiveness of treatments — and to the environment, since it disrupts the normal functioning of ecosystems.
However, current European regulations do not require hospitals or healthcare centers to have systems in place to remove antibiotics, bacteria, and antimicrobial resistance genes. LIFE GENESYS aims to anticipate future legislation by proposing systems capable of eliminating these compounds from the environment, in line with European guidelines and the One Health approach.
The One Health approach, promoted by the World Health Organisation (WHO), emphasises the interconnection between human, animal, and environmental health, and therefore advocates for addressing environmental and health challenges in a holistic, cross-sectoral manner.
In this regard, Maite Martín, president of the One Health Platform and participant in the roundtable held during the event, emphasised: “Antimicrobial resistances are still being addressed in a compartmentalised way. It is important that they tackled not only from a healthcare perspective, but also from an environmental one.”
The GENESYS technology, which will be implemented at the Parc Taulí University Hospital itself, combines an advanced wastewater treatment system — capable of eliminating over 99% of resistant bacteria and associated resistance genes — with a digital tool. This tool will enable the hospital to monitor the presence of antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals, as well as multidrug-resistant bacteria and genes, in its effluent and to optimise treatment processes.
According to Blanca Perdigones, Project Manager and researcher at Cetaqua-Centro Tecnológico del Agua and coordinator of LIFE GENESYS, “this project represents a major step forward in the elimination of antimicrobial resistances, as it will demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of a technology that can be replicated in other hospitals.”
The project is co-financed by the European Union’s LIFE programme and led by Cetaqua–Water Technology Centre, in collaboration with Aigües Sabadell, Apria Systems, Labaqua, Parc Taulí University Hospital and the Institut d’Investigació i Innovació Parc Taulí (I3PT).
The views expressed are solely the responsibility of Cetaqua-Centro Tecnológico del Agua and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union.
