Publicação
Personal protective equipment used as sampling methods to assess exposure to bioburden: an added value to be considered?
| Resumo: | Personal protective equipment, such as mechanical protection gloves, is of compulsory use in the Portuguese waste sorting industry. This study intends to assess the bioburden present in this protection equipment and discuss the possibility to be considered as a potential passive sampling method to assess occupational exposure to microbial contamination. The bacterial contamination in the glove samples ranged from 0 CFU.m-2 to uncountable, and the gram-negative bacteria contamination from 2x103 CFU.m-2 to uncountable. Sorting waste and feeding machines with waste (FMW) were the two workstations where gloves presented a higher prevalence of Gram- bacteria. The fungal contamination in the gloves samples ranged from 0 CFU.m-2 to uncountable. The FMW workstation presented the highest bacterial and fungal concentrations. Concerning the gloves wearing time, only a significant, positive, and weak-intensity correlation was detected with the fungal counts on MEA (r = 0.291, p = 0.022). Protection gloves can be used as passive sampling methods to assess occupational exposure to bioburden in the waste-sorting industry. Furthermore, the obtained results can be used to prioritize occupational health interventions and for training and education programs held to workers. |
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| Autores principais: | Viegas, Carla |
| Outros Autores: | Dias, Marta; Almeida, Beatriz; Carolino, Elisabete |
| Assunto: | Occupational health Occupational exposure Gloves Bioburden Sampling methods Wearing time Exposure assessment Project EXPOsE Project nº 23222 (02/SAICT/2016) Project IPL/2018/WasteFRPD_ESTeSL |
| Ano: | 2020 |
| País: | Portugal |
| Tipo de documento: | artigo |
| Tipo de acesso: | acesso aberto |
| Instituição associada: | Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa |
| Idioma: | inglês |
| Origem: | Repositório Científico do Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa |
| Resumo: | Personal protective equipment, such as mechanical protection gloves, is of compulsory use in the Portuguese waste sorting industry. This study intends to assess the bioburden present in this protection equipment and discuss the possibility to be considered as a potential passive sampling method to assess occupational exposure to microbial contamination. The bacterial contamination in the glove samples ranged from 0 CFU.m-2 to uncountable, and the gram-negative bacteria contamination from 2x103 CFU.m-2 to uncountable. Sorting waste and feeding machines with waste (FMW) were the two workstations where gloves presented a higher prevalence of Gram- bacteria. The fungal contamination in the gloves samples ranged from 0 CFU.m-2 to uncountable. The FMW workstation presented the highest bacterial and fungal concentrations. Concerning the gloves wearing time, only a significant, positive, and weak-intensity correlation was detected with the fungal counts on MEA (r = 0.291, p = 0.022). Protection gloves can be used as passive sampling methods to assess occupational exposure to bioburden in the waste-sorting industry. Furthermore, the obtained results can be used to prioritize occupational health interventions and for training and education programs held to workers. |
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