ISOLATION AND IDENTIFICATION OF AIRBORNE BACTERIA FROM COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT, UNIVERSITY OF BENIN, BENIN CITY

ABSTRACT

Clean air is a basic requirement of life. Most people spend 80–95% of their time in indoor environments by breathing on average 10–14 m³ of air per day. This research was conducted to determine the bacteriological indoor air quality in offices to increase awareness and provide references for better understanding about bacteria indoor air quality problems. Air samples were collected from two offices (Head of Department office and the Secretary’s office) in Computer Science Department, University of Benin using a sterile nutrient agar plate. These samples were collected for three weeks in triplicates from the two different offices. Enterococcus spp., Micrococcus spp., Bacillus spp., Staphylococcus aureus and Acinetobacter spp were isolated from the air samples. The total bacterial count ranges from 1.39×10²cfu/m³ to 7.85×10²cfu/m³ in the first office (first location) and 5.58×10²cfu/m³ to 2.112×10³cfu/m³ in the second office (second location). Antibiotics resistance testing was carried out on isolated strain showing that all strains had resistance to more than 12% of the tested antibiotics. Multiple drug resistance profile of bacteria isolates revealed that Acinetobacter spp., Bacillus spp. Micrococcus spp. wereresistant to more than three antibiotics with a multiple antibiotics resistance (MAR) index above the permissible limit of 0.2. Enterococcus spp. had an index of 0.125 which is below the permissible limit. Thus, attention must be given to control those environmental factors which favor the growth and multiplication of microbes in indoor environment to safeguard users and workers.