Abstract

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Poorly disinfected hospital floors are likely reservoir of infectious agents. The in use disinfecting solutions and complete disinfection outfit of five hospitals’ floors were quantitatively assessed in this study. Bacterial burden of regularly used mop heads and buckets used for wet mopping were determined on nutrient agar by pour plate method. Following disinfectant addition, in use disinfecting solution were examined quantitatively for bacterial bioburden (reception and wards) at 5 and 15min into cleaning. Isolation of bacteria was done using Centrimide, Eosine methylene blue, Xylose lysine deoxycholate and Mannitol salt agar. Identification was by Standard biochemical tests. The mean and standard deviations for bacterial burden in the wards and the reception mops ranged from 1.09 x 102 ± 62.7 to 2.51 x 104 ± 2.3 x 104 and 64.7 ± 20.1 to 7.9 x 103 ± 30.6 respectively. A reduction in bacterial count ranging from 85% to 96% in wards and 66% to 100% in reception sites of studied hospitals was observed 5minutes into disinfectant addition. Counts at 15min were generally higher in comparison to counts at 5min but remained constant at Hospital A. Decontamination of the cleaning materials caused a substantial decline in counts at all sites, significant at P=0.05. Staphylocccus aureus was isolated from four of the sites and other Gram negative bacteria (Serratia, Citrobacter, Escherichia, Enterobacter, Salmonella, Pseudomonas) were widely distributed, indicative of hygiene failure.

Keywords: Disinfectant, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacterial burden, Hospital cleanliness.