Investigation of Microbial Contamination of Primary Schools in Baghdad City

Abstract

A microbial contamination of several primary schools (official and private) in
Baghdad city was conducted. Sampling was performed in each school from desk,
door handle, and hand of students.
Out of 113swabs (classes desk, door holder, and students hands ) obtained from
ten primary schools, growth wasobserved in 91 samples (80.5%) (for official
school 84.6% and 71.4 for private school.
The results of recent study revealed that the official schools showed higher
contamination levels(130 CFU ) than private ones (90 CFU).
Resultes revealed that a total of 12 morphologically different bacterial species
were isolated from 62 bacterial isolates,among which gram negative bacteria 40
isolates(64.5%) were higher than gram-positive bacteria 22 isolates( 35.4%).
According to the microscopic examination , biochemical tests and API system ,
the results was showed that staphylococcus epidermidis was the most frequently
isolated bacterial species with recovery rate 10 (16 .1%). followed by
staphylococcus aureus 8 ( 12.9 %) Escherichia spp7 (11.2%) Escherichia coli7
(11.2%), Enterobacter sakazaki 5(8%), Enterobacter cloacae 5 (8%), Bacillus spp
5(8%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa 4(6.45%), Klebsiella spp 4(6.45%), Klebsiella
pneumoniae 3(4.8%), Streptocoocus spp 3(4.8%), Proteus mirabilis 1(1.6%).