Contamination of Gloved Hands by Multidrug Resistant Bacteria during Small Animal Surgery Wet-labs and its Potential Implication for Occurrence of Surgical Site Infections

Abstract

This study was carried out to evaluate the level of asepsis at various stages of the surgical procedures during the undergraduate
students’ wet-lab sessions. Skin and/or wound swabs were collected from different wet lab groups, sessions and stages. The swabs were processed for bacteriological isolation using standard microbiological procedures. A total of 62 isolates of bacteria belonging to 8 genera: Staphylococcus (n=38), Streptococcus (n=1), Corynebacterium n=4), Escherichia (n=7), Proteus (n=8), Klebsiella (n=2), Serratia (n=1) and Acinetobacter (1), were isolated. The most commonly isolated species of bacteria were Staphylococcus equorum (n=31) and Proteus spp.(n=7), which were detected in swabs from ungloved and gloved hands of surgeon and his assistant, patient’s surgical sites and surgical site infections. All the isolates (Gram-positive and negative) were resistant to at least one antibiotic with resistance to the β-lactam antibiotics: ampicillin (89.3% and 100% and amoxicillin (75% and 100%) most observed. The bacteria were more susceptible to doxycycline (75%) and imipenem (87.5%) respectively. Majority of the isolates (83.3%, n=30) were multidrug resistant, presenting in one of 24 different multidrug resistance patterns. The detection of these bacteria from the normally aseptic surgical procedure indicates a break in asepsis. Similarly, the danger of spreading multidrug resistant bacteria to the surgical wounds may result in wound infection,
dehiscence, delayed healing and increased cost of post-surgical management. It is recommended that adherence to stringent pre-surgical and intra-surgical asepsis should be observed.

Keywords: Small animal; Wet-labs; Contamination; Aerobic bacteria; Multi-drug resistance