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The University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) defines biohazards as infectious agents, materials and wastes that, when exposed to, can pose a serious health and safety risk to people, animals and the environment. Because of this, a health care facility must have a Miramar bio-hazardous medical waste management plan for disposal and treatment of biohazardous waste.
In this article, I will try to explain a little more about what biohazards are, their types, dangers and, finally how to dispose of them. If you want to know more about bio-hazard medical waste management, and you probably should if you are managing a health care facility, keep on reading.
- Types
UCLA classifies bio-hazardous materials as infectious viruses, fungi, bacteria and other pathogens that are biologically active, including toxins and venoms.
- Implications
According to bio-hazard experts, blood-borne pathogens that bio-hazardous waste contain can be a cause for great safety and health concern. For example, an accidental laceration via a used infected needle may introduce a blood-borne pathogen to another person’s blood stream.
- Warning
Handling biohazardous wastes should be left to trained bio-hazardous medical waste management workers or someone in your health care facility who is educated and trained in this.
Even cleaning biohazards should be done with extreme care and caution. For example, when cleaning blood (obviously a common task in a hospital environment), cleaning personnel shouldn’t do this by hand as if this is a regular stain, but rather use equipment that will allow them to maintain a safe distance from the blood. OSHA (Occupational Health and Safety Administration) requires that rooms containing biohazards, including those cleaned from them should be labeled with a universal “biohazard” symbol.
Biohazard Types
To understand biohazards and especially Miramar bio-hazardous medical waste management a little better, you should know what are the different types of biohazards.
Biohazards include:
- Bacteria
- Viruses
- Parasites
- Fungi
Bacteria (like TB or Tuberculosis) are organisms containing only one cell. However, they can still do some nasty damage to your organism and body. TB, for instance is a bacteria that attacks the lungs and gets transmitted via air.
Viruses are on of the things that bio-hazardous medical waste management is necessary against. The most common and dangerous pathogens of this type that you can introduce to your organism through improperly disposed of biohazardous waste are Hepatitis type C, Hepatitis type B and Human Immunodeficiency Virus, or HIV.
Parasites are organism such as tapeworms, that attach to other organism and feed off the host’s nutrients. They usually live in the small intestines or other area where they can get grub for free.
Fungi,such as mycotoxins (think mold) are organisms that break down matter and may create harmful pathogens.
Biohazard Classification
There are five types of biohazards, according to the threat that they pose. The type 1 includes those biohazards that pose minimal danger, while the type 5 includes pathogens that are life threatening and even excluded fro the United States by law.
The best way to deal with any biohazard waste that you might have is by contacting a professional bio-hazardous medical waste management company Miramar to handle it for you.
