Evaluation of bacteriological contamination of palms of pupils in the University of Benin Teaching Hospital Staff School, Benin City, Nigeria

Abstract

Hands are the chief organs for physical manipulation of the environment. As a paired organ, the hand is controlled by the opposing brain hemisphere and enables one to all manner of conscious and unconscious activities. The hand serves as a medium for the propagation of microorganism from place to place and from one person to another. A well-structured questionnaire bothering on age, sex and parental social status of the pupils was administered to three hundred and sixty (360) respondents recruited for the purpose of this study in University of Benin Teaching Hospital Staff School (UBTHSS). The mean heterotrophic Bacterial Count ranged from 2.10±0.19 x 106 to 3.77±0.26 x 106 cfu/cm2. Total coliform count ranged from 0.88±0.08 x 106 to 2.08±0.18 x 106. November recorded the highest heterotrophic and coliform counts ranging from 2.70±0.24 x 106 to 3.77±0.26 x 106 cfu/cm2 and 1.14±0.11 x 106 to 2.08±0.18 x 106cfu/cm2. The male pupils had the highest Heterotrophic and coliform counts of 4.132 x106cfu/cm2 and 2.273x106cfu/cm2 against the female of 1.433x106cfu/cm2 and 0.667x106cfu/cm2. The mean heterotrophic bacterial counts of parental status ranged from 2.78±0.10 x 106 to 2.83±0.08 cfu/cm2 and total coliform counts of 1.24±0.05 x 106 to1.35±0.15 x 106. The mean Heterotrophic barial and coliform counts of age ranged from 2.51±0.74 x 106 to 3.38±0.15 x 106 cfu/cm2 and 0.59 -3.43 x 106 to 0.35 - 2.62 x 106cfu/cm2. A total of ten (10) Gram positive and negative bacterial were isolated in this study. The bacterial isolates with the highest frequency of occurrence were staphylococcus aureus and E.coli (12.00%), E.coli and the least frequency was salmonella enterica (7.3%). The antimicrobial sensitivity pattern showed that the bacteria isolates exhibits varying degree of resistance to the antibiotics before and after curing. The isolates were found to harbor plasmid of different sizes but below 1000bp.There was no plasmid after curing.