ABSTRACT
Air is an important route of disease transmission, as it is laden with variety of microbial pollutants which can access the human body via inhalation. The concentration of pollutants in the indoor air environment is often higher than those encountered in the outdoor air. An average person spends around 80% of the time indoors. So, exposure to these pollutants is inevitable. Many factors affect the amount of particulate matters and its constituent bioaerosols in the air locations such as population size, human activities, materials used for building furniture and also the nature of air ventilating the house. The concentration and spread of bioaerosols are influenced by atmospheric factors such as humidity, temperature and wind velocity. Therefore, this research was conducted to access the bacteriological quality of air in various wards at Koko Central Hospital, Koko, Warri North Local Government Area, Delta State, Nigeria.
Samples were collected in triplicates from 8 selected wards in the hospital within the hours of 8–10am, 12–2pm and 4–6pm for the duration of the study. Thereafter, the samples were taken to the laboratory for immediate analysis using standard cultural method. The bacterial isolated were subjected to antibiotic susceptibility test using standard discs. The multiple antibiotic resistance index was determined in other to evaluate the public health importance.
The results obtained within the duration of study revealed that more microbial counts were recorded in the morning between 8–10am and evening periods between 4–6pm. The average bacterial count ranged from 5.2 x 102 cfu/m3 to 11.3 x 103 cfu/m3. The General ward and OPD had high bacteria load (due to the inflow of population) compared to the Immunization unit which had low microbial load and low contamination at selected periods of the day. The identity of the bacterial isolates were coagulase negative Staphylococcus, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The most prevalent bacterial isolates were coagulase negative Staphylococcus aureus having a frequency of 32% and the least were Escherichia coli with a frequency of 8%. All isolates were susceptible to gentamicin (100%) and ciprofloxacin (100%), while they were least susceptible to amoxicillin (35.6%), ampicillin (31.4%) and cefixime (38.9%). These isolates had a multiple antibiotic resistant (MAR) index greater than 0.2 with S. aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and E. coli havingMAR index of 0.610, 0.525, and 0.500, respectively. Adequate and proper ventilation system should be provided to reduce the rate of microbial load in the area with high microbial load.
