No Spin: How Washing Machines Might Be Fueling Antimicrobial Resistance

A faulty washing machine may lead to frustration and disruption when it halts during a wash cycle or fails to empty itself, resulting in clothing that isn’t cleaned adequately or takes much longer to dry due to an imbalanced spinning action.

However, malfunctioning appliances might pose an even graver threat than simply failing to remove wine stains or coffee spills; they have the potential to contribute to the spread of antimicrobial resistance by not eliminating certain types of bacteria from clothing.

Included among the bacteria that survive on laundry are Staphylococcus aureus (known for causing various skin and respiratory infections like MRSA) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (as indicated by its name, this can lead to pneumonia).

"According to our findings, household washing machines frequently do not eliminate pathogens from fabrics, enabling antibiotic-resistant bacteria to persist," stated Katie Laird from De Montfort University in Leicester, following the publication of her team’s study in the scientific journal PLOS One.

"She stated that if we're committed to addressing the transmission of infectious diseases through fabrics and combating antibiotic resistance, we need to reconsider how we wash the clothing worn by healthcare personnel." This comment followed trials conducted by her team using six different household washer models to assess their effectiveness in thoroughly cleaning healthcare worker uniforms.

The group discovered that when soiled fabrics were washed with hot water, three machines “were unable to disinfect the clothes during a quick cycle,” whereas two “didn’t manage to clean adequately during the regular cycle.”

Furthermore, the researchers discovered that bacteria have developed resistance to household cleaning agents, potentially making some antibiotics less effective against these microbes.

In recent years, doctors and researchers have been cautioning that excessive and improper use of antibiotics—such as adding them to livestock feed or administering them routinely when infants or young children show initial signs of sickness—might result in what has been termed an "antibiotic apocalypse."

According to estimates from the University of Oxford published in The Lancet, a prestigious medical journal, between 1.2 million and 4.9 million individuals globally succumb annually to infections due to antibiotic resistance. A study released by the same journal last year indicated that at least 700,000 of these fatalities might be avoided through better access to clean water and enhanced sanitary conditions.