Bacterial contamination of the indoor air in a transplant unit

Czech version

Authors: Matoušková Ivanka; Holý Ondřej
Authors‘ workplace: Ústav preventivního lékařství, Lékařská fakulta Univerzity Palackého v Olomouci
Published in: Epidemiol. Mikrobiol. Imunol. 62, 2013, č. 4, s. 153-159

Overview

For one year (August 2010 to July 2011), microbial contamination of the indoor air in the Transplant Unit of the Haemato-Oncology Clinic, Olomouc University Hospital was monitored monthly. Twenty sampling sites were singled out and a total of 240 indoor air samples were collected. An MAS-100 air sampler (Merck, GER) was used, air flow rate of 100 liters per minute, 1 minute. The measured values of indoor air temperature were stable. The relative air humidity ranged from 17% to 68%. The highest average value of microbial air contamination was found in the "staff entry room" (1170 CFU/m³). The lowest microbial air contamination (150–250 CFU/m³) was measured in the patient isolation units. The most frequently isolated bacterial strains were coagulase-negative staphylococci (94.3%), followed by Micrococcus spp. (67%) and Bacillus subtilis (11%). It can be assumed that the source of these airborne bacterial strains are both patients and medical staff. They are classified as opportunistic pathogens and as such can cause hospital infections among haemato-oncology patients.

Keywords:
hospital environment – clean rooms – haemato-oncology patients – coagulase-negative staphylococci – risk of infection

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Labels

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Article was published in

Epidemiology, Microbiology, Immunology

2013 Issue 4