Dr Sozy Th. Baban1
1Surgical Specialty Hospital, Erbil , Iraq
Background: Microbial contamination of operating theater (OT) and intensive care unit (ICU) is the most frequent cause of nosocomial infections in patients. Objectives: this study aims to evaluate the prevalence level and variety of microbial contamination in these high-risk areas in the surgical specialty hospital in Erbil city. Materials and Methods: Three sampling procedures were employed in this study, which includes swabbing, open plate, and both microbiological and biochemical investigation of water supply in these high-risk areas. Standard microbiological techniques were used for microbiological culture and identification of microbial pathogens. Results: 48.3% yielded positive microbial growth. The most common isolates were Gram-positive bacteria (83.1%), of which Staphylococcus aureus accounted for 78.6% of bacterial pathogens isolated, followed by Streptococci (33.3%) and Enterococci (28.6%). Whereas, lower rate of Gram-negative bacterial contamination (16.9%) was observed, including Escherichia coli (19%) and each of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Proteus (4.8%). Air contamination with Aspergillus (19%) and Molds (14.3%) was observed, respectively. The highest rate of microbial contamination was observed in OT rooms (35.6%) where 50% of environmental hygiene practice was detected using infection control practice audit tool. In addition, 21.4% of positive cultures were identified in ICU rooms where only 9% of environmental hygiene was practiced. Conclusions: These findings emphasize the important role of infection control system to prevent the cross-transmission of nosocomial pathogens to cause contamination and infection in the critically ill patients.
Keywords: Infection prevention and control, nosocomial pathogens, surgical-site wound infection
Biography: Dr. Soza Tharwat Baban, is an assistant professor in molecular medical microbiology.
She completed her PhD. and MSc. degrees in Molecular Medical Microbiology at the University of Nottingham, UK, where she studied the virulence of the human hypervirulent UK-outbreak hospital strain of Clostridium difficile infection in UK.She undertook pioneering diagnostic laboratory work on the virulence of Clostridium difficile infection as part of a large program of work funded by the UK Medical Research Council and the European Union under the 7th European Framework Hyperdiff Clinical Program. This has resulted in two significant publications.