A Detailed Guide To Infectious and Non-Infectious Medical Waste

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 Infectious medical waste refers to medical waste that can cause a contagious disease. Medical waste is considered capable of producing a contagious disease if it has been or is likely to have been contaminated by an organism that is pathogenic to healthy humans if such living thing is not frequently and freely available in the community, and if such organism has a substantial chance of being present in sufficient quantities and with adequate virulence to spread disease. Infectious medical waste consists of the following materials:

  • Cultures and stocks of microbes and biologicals: Discarded cultures, stocks, specimens, vaccines, and associated things that are likely to have been contaminated by an infectious agent, as well as discarded etiologic agents and trash from biological and antibiotic manufacture.
  • Blood and Blood Products: Free-flowing or unabsorbed liquid waste of human blood and blood products. Note: Any tubing with visible blood must be disposed of as infectious waste.
  • Pathological waste: Refers to human tissues, organs, body parts, and fluid containers that have not been treated with formaldehyde or another fixative.
  • Sharps: Items that can cause punctures or cuts and have been used in patient care, pharmacies, medical research, or industrial laboratories. Examples include hypodermic needles, syringes with attached needles, scalpel blades, lancets, and broken glassware.
  • Contaminated animal waste: Includes corpses, body parts, and bedding from animals exposed to infectious organisms during research, biological production, pharmaceutical testing, or other purposes.
Isolation waste is produced during patient care for diseases classified as Class 4 by the US Centers for Disease Control. Class 4 agents require the most severe containment conditions because they are exceedingly harmful to laboratory personnel or potentially create a serious epidemic disease. This class contains Class 3 agents from outside the United States used in entomological experiments or when other entomological investigations occur in the same laboratory location.

Class 4 viral agents include alastrim, monkeypox, smallpox, and white pox. Hemorrhagic fever viruses include Congo-Crimean, Ebola, Hantavirus, Junin, Machupo, and Marburg viruses. Herpesvirus simiae (Monkey B Virus) Lassa fever virus. Tick-borne encephalitis viruses include Central European encephalitis, Kyasanur forest illness, Omsk hemorrhagic fever, and Russian spring-summer encephalitis viruses. Venezuelan equine encephalitis and yellow fever viruses.

Non-Infectious Medical Waste
No epidemiological evidence supports the claim that most hospital waste is more infectious than home waste. Furthermore, there is no epidemiological evidence that hospital waste has caused disease in the community as a result of poor disposal. As a result, determining which wastes require particular safeguards is primarily a matter of weighing the relative hazards of disease transmission.

The most practical way to manage infectious waste is to identify those wastes that have the potential to cause infection during processing and disposal and require additional measures. Microbiology, laboratory trash, pathology waste, and blood specimens or blood products are examples of hospital wastes that warrant specific measures. While any item that has come into touch with blood, exudates, or secretions may be potentially infected, treating all such wastes as infected is rarely practicable or essential. The following are non-infectious medical waste:
  • Personal hygiene products used include tissues, diapers, and feminine products.
  • Gauze and dressing material contains minor amounts of blood or other biological fluids, but no free-flowing or unabsorbed liquid;
  • Fixed pathological tissues, as well as uncontaminated medical tubing and gadgets.
  • Hair, nails, and extracted teeth.
  • Human remains and body parts used or inspected for medical purposes under the supervision of a competent physician or dentist and are not abandoned materials.
  • Human remains lawfully deposited in a cemetery or being prepared by a licensed mortician for interment or cremation.
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