Abstract
The presence of microorganisms in indoor air represents a dangerous issue with a major impact in the field of health protection and environmental engineering. Low indoor air quality is a major trouble in government schools because of the massive density of students per classroom, inadequate supply of air from outside, as well as weak construction and poor maintenance of school buildings. Evaluation of microbial contamination within the indoor air is important to assess health dangers and establish requirements for tracking indoor air quality. Evaluation of microbial contamination is of notable significance in intensively populated centers as government schools. A study was carried out among a hundred and twenty randomly classrooms of twenty government primary schools of Riyadh city in the academic year 2018/2019. For the determination of microbial pollution, passive air sampling settle plate technique was utilized by exposing a Petri dish of appropriate agar media for one hour. Results showed that the counts of bacteria and fungi were higher in government schools in low socioeconomic districts as compared to those of high socioeconomic districts. The indoor analyses reveal that the concentration of bacteria was higher than counts of fungi. In general, Gram positive microorganisms were the dominant organisms. Gram positive bacteria, Bacillus, Micrococci and Staphylococci were the predominant bacterial strains in the schools under study. Attention has to be paid for controlling the physical factors that assist the growth and reproduction of microbes in indoor air of classrooms to keep the students and teachers healthy.
Highlights
The quality of air in indoors has come to be a significant public health challenge as the general public spends more than ninety percent of their time in interior such as homes, workplaces and educational facilities
The total bacterial counts ranged from 396-3589 and 712-5760 colony forming units (CFU) m-3 in the schools of high and low socioeconomic districts, respectively
Potato dextrose agar (PDA) petri plates showed heavy fungal growth when exposed to indoor air in government primary schools of both high and low socioeconomic districts of all sampled schools
Summary
The quality of air in indoors has come to be a significant public health challenge as the general public spends more than ninety percent of their time in interior such as homes, workplaces and educational facilities. Indoor air may be polluted with one or more of the most important microorganism like bacteria and fungi. It was found that about 33% of the indoor air quality claims occurred by the microbial contamination [1] which cause allergy, respiratory and immunetoxic diseases [2]. The high levels of student’s activities led to indoor air pollution with bacteria and fungi. Schools are more danger than the other different buildings. This is attributed to the high density of students per classroom, bad sanitation and inadequate outdoor air supply. This danger is aggravated through frequent construction and upkeep of school buildings [5]. The concentration of microbial contamination of schools is a crucial factor because of its effect on the human mentality, physical up growth and students’ performance
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