Abstract
Background: The study was conducted to determine the bacterial composition and antibiotic susceptibility profiles of a research institute at the University of Ghana where workers and students spend about 70-85% of their lives in indoor and immediate-outdoor environments. This is imperative as one-third of the recognized infectious diseases are transmitted through airborne-route. Furthermore, the increasing rate of bacterial antimicrobial resistance associated with such environments poses serious public health challenges. Methods: A total of 42 airborne samples were collected from eight major sites at the Department of Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology (BCMB), using passive bacterial sampling techniques. Standard phenotypic microbiological procedures were used to characterize the isolates. Antibiotic susceptibility profiles were determined using standard disk diffusion method and guidelines of Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI). Results: Four groups of bacterial isolates were identified from the total samples collected withGram positivebacilli as the most common. All the isolates showed resistance tobeta lactamand sulfonamideclasses of antibiotics with full resistance (100%) to ampicillin and penicillin. In total, seven different anti-biotypes were observed with the highest susceptibility displayed towards tetracycline and gentamycin. Significantly, the various air sampling sites of the institute indicated the presence of bacteria with the majority showing multiple antibiotics resistance. Conclusions: Although the recovery of bacteria from supposed sterile environments calls for attention, the observed low contamination rate as compared to the WHO standard suggests a minimum risk of exposure of students and workers to airborne microbial contamination.
Highlights
Quality of air, especially in indoor environments where people spend 80–95% of their lives is of significant health importance[1]
Bioaerosols, mostly bacterial and fungal spores are actively living complex particles that have been associated with contamination of indoor air[5,7,8]
In a typical research environment of academic training and learning, a series of movements do occur from the outdoors through the immediateoutdoors to indoors[2,14]. This facilitates the movement of microorganisms, especially bacteria to different compartments of the building[15]
Summary
Especially in indoor environments where people spend 80–95% of their lives is of significant health importance[1]. In a typical research environment of academic training and learning, a series of movements do occur from the outdoors through the immediateoutdoors to indoors[2,14] This facilitates the movement of microorganisms, especially bacteria to different compartments of the building[15]. The study was conducted to determine the bacterial composition and antibiotic susceptibility profiles of a research institute at the University of Ghana where workers and students spend about 70-85% of their lives in indoor and immediate-outdoor environments. This is imperative as one-third of the recognized infectious diseases are transmitted through airborne-route. Conclusions: the recovery of bacteria from supposed sterile environments calls for attention, the observed low contamination rate as compared to the WHO standard suggests a minimum risk of exposure of students and workers to airborne microbial contamination
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