Abstract
Indoor air of classroom in eight schools (4 nursery; NS1, NS2, NS3 and NS4, and 4 secondaries; SS1, SS2, SS3 and SS4) within Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, were analyzed at ambient and populated sampling conditions using natural sedimentation on nutrient agar medium. The results revealed varying ventilation patterns in each of the classrooms, and the following airborne bacterial counts; NS1 (16.6 cfu/m3), NS2 (13.3 cfu/m3), NS3 (23.3 cfu/m3), NS4 (33.3 cfu/m3), SS1 (6.6 cfu/m3), SS2 (6.6 cfu/m3), SS3(28.3 cfu/m3) and SS4 (15 cfu/m3) at ambient sampling and 40 cfu/m3, 41.6 cfu/m3, 58.3 cfu/m3, 68.3 cfu/m3, 6.6 cfu/m3, 31.6 cfu/m3, 56.6 cfu/m3 and 25 cfu/m3 respectively at populated sampling. Bacterial isolates identified were Lactobacillus, Staphylococcus, Bacillus, Rothia, Kurthia, Corynebacterium, Pseudomonas, Brevibacterium, and Flavobacterium. Statistical analysis of the results revealed negative relationships between class area and aerobic plate counts (p>0.05), class population and aerobic plate count (p>0.805), and significant increase in aerobic plate counts at populated conditions over that at ambient conditions (p<0.05). The results therefore point to the dimensions of classrooms, ventilation and population of the classrooms as important factors in determining the bacterial air quality, and invariably affecting the health condition of students.
Highlights
Air serves as a key route and major source of human microbial exposure (Jones, 1999)
Microbial causative agents of adverse health conditions have been documented in aerosols of different indoor built environment such as schools and such agents can be transmitted between individuals in close proximity (Wargocki and Wyon, 2006), including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) (Gehring et al, 2010)
A total of 9 bacterial genera were identified from the classroom atmosphere and identified as Rothia sp, Bacillus sp, Corynebacterium sp, Lactobacillus sp, Flavobacterium sp, Staphylococcus sp, Brevibacterium sp, Pseudomonas sp, Kurthia sp and both in ambient and populated sampling respectively
Summary
Air serves as a key route and major source of human microbial exposure (Jones, 1999). Microbial causative agents of adverse health conditions have been documented in aerosols of different indoor built environment such as schools and such agents can be transmitted between individuals in close proximity (Wargocki and Wyon, 2006), including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) (Gehring et al, 2010). Researchers such as Dunn et al (2013) have observed that microbial communities are vastly different between different types of indoor environments such as schools, houses and hospitals, even different rooms within the same building (e.g. bedroom vs bathroom) exhibit distinct microbiomes. This work is focused on studying the correlation between bacteriological air quality in schools within Ikot Ekpene and classroom population and ventilation pattern
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