Bacteriological Enumeration and Air Quality of Three Major Hospitals in Benin City, Nigeria

Abstract

Airborne microorganisms results in nosocomial infections and are
present in the air environment. Bacteriological air quality of hospital air
environment is necessary to identify the airborne isolates responsible for
these nosocomial infections. Samples were collected monthly from the
designated sampling sites of three hospitals for a period of 12 months
using the Settled Plate Methods on Nutrient Agar. The airborne bacterial
colonies were characterized using the cultural, morphological and
biochemical characteristics features. The mean airborne bacterial counts
for Hospital 1 ranged from 2.35 + 1.36 ×102 cfu/m3
to 44.01 + 12.09
×102 cfu/m3
that of Hospital 2 ranged from 2.09 + 0.45 ×102 cfu/m3
to
86.44 + 14.99 ×102 cfu/m3 while values for Hospital 3 ranged from 3.14
+ 2.36 ×102 cfu/m3
to 94.29 + 7.86 ×102 cfu/m3
. The evaluation of air
quality revealed that hospital 3 had very high microbial load of 42.9% as
compared to hospitals 1 and 2 with values of 24.1% and 27%
respectively. The airborne bacterial isolates were characterized and
identified to be Staphylococcus spp., Bacillus cereus, Bacillus subtilis,
Comamonas spp, Providencia spp. and Alcaligenes spp. The Government
owned hospitals had a higher microbial load than the other two
privately-owned hospitals. More emphasis should be placed on this area
of research because of the potential severity of the consequences of
nosocomial infections. The Hospital managements, Ministry of Health,
States and Federal Government, should establish a research database
and set an acceptable range of isolated airborne flora in the hospital and
other environments.