Mojtaba Davoudi; Zohre Vojodi; Tayebe Jafarian; Akram Robat jazi; Zainab Fuladi; Maryam Jafarian; Sima Nourbakhsh
Abstract
Background and Purpose: Increased waste production during patient treatment emerges as a serious issue following infectious disease outbreaks. The current study aimed to investigate the effect of the COVID-19 outbreak on medical waste production in Mashhad, Iran.Materials and Methods: In this study, ...
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Background and Purpose: Increased waste production during patient treatment emerges as a serious issue following infectious disease outbreaks. The current study aimed to investigate the effect of the COVID-19 outbreak on medical waste production in Mashhad, Iran.Materials and Methods: In this study, 4 referral (R) and 2 non-referral (NR) hospitals were examined. The quantity and quality of waste produced before (2018-2019) and during COVID-19 (2019-2020) were extracted from hospital records and noted in standard medical waste management checklists. Also, the number of hospital visits due to COVID-19 was determined and entered into the study by referring to the Treatment Deputy of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences.Results: The results showed that the mean waste production was 449.50 ± 49.45 kg/day and 436.04 ± 107.55 kg/day in 2018-2019 (before COVID-19) and 2019-2020 (during the outbreak) in R1, respectively, 3000.26 ± 227.46 kg/day and 3279.72 ± 153.00 in R2, 544.53 ± 107.10 kg/day and 666.32 ± 156.68 in R3, and 476.72 ± 15.96 kg/day and 635.41 ± 54.88 kg/day in R4. Also, the mean waste production was 219.6 ± 36.90 and 199.06 ± 49.58 kg/day in NR1 and 112.1 ± 29.55 kg/day and 108.8±59.1 kg/day in NR2 before and during COVID-19, respectively. Field surveys showed that despite the increased amount of waste production, all waste management stages, such as collection, transfer, and disposal, are being implemented in accordance with the guidelines.Conclusion: The results of this study showed that the medical waste production rate is related to the prevalence of diseases. Considering the importance of medical waste management, it requires careful and correct application of national and international guidelines.
Maryam Sarkhosh; Mostafa Hadei; Sima Nourbakhsh; Hossein Alidadi; Mohammad Pazira; Gholam Reza Farahzad
Abstract
Background and Purpose:Assessing the health effects of air pollution can provide useful information for health policy . AirQ + software is a tool for determining and modeling the health effects attributed to air pollutants such as O3, NO2, PM10 and PM2.5. The aim of this study was to quantify the health ...
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Background and Purpose:Assessing the health effects of air pollution can provide useful information for health policy . AirQ + software is a tool for determining and modeling the health effects attributed to air pollutants such as O3, NO2, PM10 and PM2.5. The aim of this study was to quantify the health effects of PM2.5 pollutants in the air of Mashhad.materials and methods:In order to present this analytical study, air quality data were obtained in 2019 from the General Department of Environment of the province and the Environmental Pollutants Monitoring Center of Mashhad Municipality. Hourly data of each validated station and stations that less than 75% of the data were not registered or were not valid were eliminate. Demographic and meteorological information were also obtained from relevant organizations. AirQ + software was used to quantify the health effects of suspended particles. The desired cut-off concentration was 10 μg / m3 according to WHO guidelines.result:The results show that the total death rate attributed to PM2.5 in 2019 was about 1069 cases, which is about 9.5% of the total deaths in Mashhad. In the long term exposure, the rate of premature death attributed to PM2.5 due to COPD in that year was about 14%, due to cancer about 12%, due to IHD about 6% and due to stroke about 8% of the total deaths in Mashhad in the upper25 years old population. Conclusion:Among air pollutants, PM2.5 due to its special structure composition can be one of the risk factors for public health. This study does not consider the synergistic effects of air pollutants, which is due to the lack of studies worldwide. If the synergistic effects of pollutants are taken into account, the rate of deaths attributed to air pollution could be much higher than currently estimated.