Abstract
Hospital infections caused by fungi have been frequently reported in hospitalized patients, with a high morbidity and mortality, making it increasingly important to the awareness of air quality. This study is designed to isolate, identify and investigate the occurrence of airborne fungal spores present in various working environments of some selected hospitals within Lagos State, Nigeria. Air samples at six working area (reception, out-patient, male ward, female ward, maternity ward and operating theatre) of the selected hospitals were obtained on triplicate of Sabouraud dextrose agar plates, every week days for six consecutive weeks. Isolated fungi were subsequently identified using both microscopic and macroscopic characteristics. Seven species of fungi belonging to three genera were recovered during this study period; Aspergillus niger, A. flavus, A. fumigatus, A. species, Candida species, Penicillium citrinum and P. species. The most abundant fungus encountered in this study is A. niger with P. species being the least isolated fungus from all the investigated hospitals. Of the six working areas sampled in the eight hospitals, the reception and out-patient areas appeared to record the highest occurrence of encountered fungi while the examined operating theatre rooms had the least fungal airsporal contaminant. It was gathered from this study that despite the daily cleaning of the investigated hospital working environments with different antiseptic and disinfectants, fungal contaminant was observed throughout the sampled period. We thereby conclude that the hospital environments are continuously monitored in order to identify and eliminate the sources of these fungal spores.
Highlights
Fungal species that may be present in hospitals, unusual opportunistic fungi in environment such as species of Candida and Aspergillus remain major cause of nosocomial infection (Pfaller and Diekema, 2007)
Organisms’ in their environs knowing fully the health implication
Seven species of fungi belonging to three genera were recovered from the study; Aspergillus niger, A. flavus, A. fumigatus, A. species, Candida species, Penicillium citrinum and P. species (Plate 1 - 7)
Summary
Fungal species that may be present in hospitals, unusual opportunistic fungi in environment such as species of Candida and Aspergillus remain major cause of nosocomial infection (Pfaller and Diekema, 2007). This study aims to isolate, identify and investigate the occurrence of airborne fungal spores present in various working environments of eight different hospitals within Lagos State, Nigeria and ascertain the claims of these hospitals on the use of disinfectants to curb this contamination. Penicillium species for instance, was not recovered from these sampled areas and P. citrinum was only observed in the operating theatre of hospital 8 on just two culture plates of the 90 exposed culture plates.
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