A comparative Study on Mycoflora of Different Care Units in Suez Canal University Hospital, Egypt

Metwally Kottb,O Abdulwahid,Eman Attia,Soha Mahmoud

doi:10.21608/eajbsg.2020.127315

Abstract

Air contains a large number of bacteria and fungi. Their assessment is critical as an indicator of contaminations for any particular environment. Inhalation of air fungal spores is considered a source of different fungal diseases, especially in immunocompromised patients. Therefore, this study aimed to compare concentrations and types of fungal species in both indoor and outdoor air of different intensive care units in a Suez Canal University Hospital. Samples were assessed twice monthly during one year from 2017-2018. Four units were investigated, Cardiothoracic Care Unit, Cardio Care Unit( CCU), Intensive Care Unit (ICU), and the Liver Intensive Care Unit. The results revealed that about 4097.26& 4534.75 colony forming units ( CFU ) were isolated from indoor and outdoor air respectively throughout the study, with a percentage of 20.2%, 27.5% from Cardiothoracic Care Unit, 31.9%, 17.1% from CCU, 17.9 %, 17.1% from ICU, and finally 29.7%, 38.20% from the Liver Intensive Care Unitfrom indoor and outdoor air respectively. The total airborne indoor and outdoor fungal load of the Cardiothoracic Care Unit was high 170.29CFU/m3 &249.11CFU/m3 during December and February respectively. The CCU isolated total fungal flora peaked high 274.8CFU/m3 and 209CFU/m3 indoor and outdoor respectively during November. Also, the total airborne indoor and outdoor fungal load of the ICU showed high counts of 170.5CFU/m3 & 209.8CFU/m3 during December and Novemberrespectively. The liver Intensive Care Unitindoor showed high counts during February 288 CFU/m3. Whereas, outdoor showed high counts during November 419 CFU/m3.

Highlights

To overcome nosocomial respiratory infections especially, in immunocompromised hosts, indoor air quality must be controlled
With regard to each unit separately, the Critical Care Unit (CCU) showed the highest percentage (31.9%) for the indoor air, followed by the liver Intensive Care Unit (29.7%), the Cardiothoracic Care Unit (20.2%) and ICU (17.9%).This load was changed with the outdoor air, whereas the Liver Intensive Care Unit gave the highest percentage (38.20%) as shown in Table (1) & Figures (1&2)
The greatest total colony count was attributed to Cladosporium sp (55.8±.238) from the Cardiothoracic Care Unit outdoor, followed by Alternaria sp (50.8±.138) from the Liver

Summary

Introduction

To overcome nosocomial respiratory infections especially, in immunocompromised hosts, indoor air quality must be controlled. Different types of microorganisms are present in different environmental sources such as soil, dust, water, and decaying organic matter. When such materials are carried by people or air current to different healthcare units, the inhabitant microorganisms can multiply in different indoor ecological niches (Shelton et al, 2002). Such microbes, including fungi, bacteria, and viruses, can cause-airborne diseases, especially in most susceptible hosts such as elderly patients, heavy smokers, cancer patients, and solid organ transplantation patients. Due to outbreaks of nosocomial fungal diseases, many studies have been developed in hospital environments on the fungal contamination (Dacarro et al, 2003; Vonberg & Gastmeier, 2006; Goudarzi et al, 2016; Rostami et al, 2017)

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