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Antibiogram And Microbial Carriage Of Campus Shuttle Door Handles
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CHAPTER ONE
1.0 Introduction
The spread of infectious disease
through hand contact has been an area of major public health concern
because of the frequent contact of the hand with fomites which are
potential carriers of pathogenic organisms may lead to an alarming rate
of outbreaks of infections transmitted by the fomites. Worldwide
annually there are 1.7 million deaths from diarrhoeal diseases and 1.5
million deaths from respiratory infections (Pruss-Ustun and Covahan,
2006), these are examples of diseases which could be contracted by
humans via fomites. According to (Itah, 2004), Gram positive
Staphylococcus aureus, and Gram negative bacteria such as Escherichia
coli, Klebsiella species, Pseudomonas species, were found to contaminate
various contact surfaces including chairs, tables, windows, door
handles and many other common household fixtures. The presence of these
pathogenic bacteria on environmental surfaces poses a potential risk to
vulnerable, immune-compromised individuals (Pruss-Ustun and Covahan,
2006).
It has been shown that hard, non-porous surfaces such as door
handles have the highest bacterial transfer rates to hands (Rusin et
al., 2002). In recent past, a lot of effort has been invested in
emphasized hand hygiene through hand wipes and hand sanitizers (Hota,
2004). Hand wipes with higher ethanol content are more effective in not
only antimicrobial activities but also remover of endospores via
mechanical action (Stout et al., 2010). Even though people are commonly
aware of such practices, the possibility of inaccessibility or lack of
use of these practices do exist. According to Hansen and Knochel (2010)
up to 60% 0f adults do not wash their hands when appropriate. People
believe that microbes are only present in research laboratories,
hospitals or clinics and thus they have a misleading feeling of security
in other places or while touching other surfaces such as door handles
(Stout et al., 2010). Lack of knowledge of the roles of micro-habitat
such as door handles in dissemination of microorganisms is a threat to
public health. In fact 80% of infections are spread through hand contact
with hands or other objects (Reynold and Hurst, 2005). Reynold and
Hurst (2005) used an invisible fluorescent tracer for artificial
contamination of public surfaces. They found that contamination from
outside surfaces was transferred to 86% of exposed individual’s and 82%
tracked the tracer to their home or personal belongings hours later. The
viability of Gram positive and Gram negative organism under various
environment conditions have been described (Noskin et al., 1995). Some
microbes are infectious at very low doses and can survive for hours to
weeks on nonporous surfaces, such as countertops, telephone and door
handles (Reynold and Hurst, 2005). Enterococcihave been found to
survive in dry conditions and on various fabrics utilized in the health
care environment. Infectious doses of pathogen may be transferred to the
mouth after handling everyday contaminated objects such as the door
handles. Door handles are contaminated with various types of
microorganisms including varying species of bacteria and fungi and this
may be a source of nocosomial infections in hospitals. Scientific
information about the occurrence of microorganisms on various objects
outside the health care facilities is very little and needs to be
enriched in order to educate people on the necessity of improving the
habit of hand washing to reduce microbial transmission.
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]The transmission of infection via fomites constitutes a major threat to public health especially in the developing countries. This study was carried out to investigate the microbial carriage and antibiotics pattern of bacteria on the door handles of campus shuttle operating in the Federal University of Technology Akure. Samples were randomly collected from a total of one hundred and fifty (150) door handles following standard laboratory techniques. Enumeration of the bacterial counts was carried ... Continue reading---
