Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Sep 19;4(4):100250.
doi: 10.1016/j.infpip.2022.100250. eCollection 2022 Dec.

Environmental bacterial and fungal contamination in high touch surfaces and indoor air of a paediatric intensive care unit in Maputo Central Hospital, Mozambique in 2018

Vânia Maphossa  1 , José Carlos Langa  2 , Samuel Simbine  2 , Fabião Edmundo Maússe  2 , Darlene Kenga  2 , Ventura Relvas  2 , Valéria Chicamba  3 , Alice Manjate  2 , Jahit Sacarlal  2
Affiliations

Environmental bacterial and fungal contamination in high touch surfaces and indoor air of a paediatric intensive care unit in Maputo Central Hospital, Mozambique in 2018

Vânia Maphossa et al. Infect Prev Pract. .

Abstract

Background: The hospital environment serves as a reservoir of microorganisms which may be associated with healthcare-associated infections (HCAI). The study of environmental contamination with microorganisms is a method for the assessment of hospital environmental hygiene. We sought to evaluate the environmental colonisation of a national reference hospital unit, using the total aerobic colony count (ACC) and the isolated microorganisms, as assessment tools.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) of the Hospital Central de Maputo during a four-week period in 2018. Surfaces and air were sampled before and after room cleaning, using swabs and passive air method. Those samples were processed at the microbiology laboratory where total ACC levels were evaluated, and microorganisms were isolated, identified and assessed for antibiotic susceptibility.

Discussion: Comparison of the total median ACC of the indoor air (287 cfu/m3 before and 195 cfu/m3 after) and surfaces (0.38 cfu/cm2 before and 0.33 cfu/cm2 after) before and after room cleaning did not show significant differences (P>0.05). Microorganisms of epidemiological importance, including coagulase negative staphylococci (CoNS), Klebsiella pneumoniae and Serratia odorifera were isolated and all of these three were multi-drug resistant (MDR).

Conclusion: The results showed controlled contamination levels on high touch surfaces in the patient environment and a high level of contamination of the indoor air suggesting deficiencies in the PICU environmental decontamination process. There was evidence of the presence of fungi and MDR species of epidemiological importance in the context of HCAI.

Keywords: Contamination; Environment; Healthcare-associated infections; Surfaces.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Surfaces median total ACC, before and after room cleaning.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Storr J., Twyman A., Zingg W., Damani N., Kilpatrick C., Reilly J., et al. Core components for effective infection prevention and control programmes: New WHO evidence-based recommendations. Antimicrob Resist Infect Control. 2017;6 doi: 10.1186/s13756-016-0149-9. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Nejad S.B., Allegranzi B., Syed S.B., Ellisc B., Pittetd D. Health-care-associated infection in Africa: a systematic review. Bull World Health Organ. 2011;89:757–765. doi: 10.2471/BLT.11.088179. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Allegranzi B., Nejad S.B., Combescure C., Graafmans W., Attar H., Donaldson L., et al. Burden of endemic health-care-associated infection in developing countries: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Lancet. 2011;377:228–241. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(10)61458-4. - DOI - PubMed
    1. (WHO) World Health Organization . vol. 34. 2011. https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/80135/9789241501507_eng... (Report on the burden of endemic health care-associated infection worldwide: clean care is safer care). accessed.
    1. Monteiro L.G.S., Chaúque A., Barros M.P., Irá T.R. Determinants of antibiotic prescription in paediatric patients: The case of two hospitals in Maputo, Mozambique. SAJCH South African J Child Heal. 2017;11:109–111. doi: 10.7196/SAJCH.2017.v11i3.1224. - DOI

LinkOut - more resources