Abstract:
Background: The study was undertaken to assess po-
tential sources that might transmit Hospital Acquired
Infections in the Volta Regional Hospital of Ghana.
Method: A total of 218 swabs were taken over a six
month study period of two weeks sampling bi-monthly
from 33 different door handles, taps, desk surfaces and
lavatories and 15 different surfaces in the theatre be-
fore and after cleaning on each sampling day. The
swabs were cultured on Blood, Chocolate and Mac-
Conkey agars and incubated for 24hrs at 35±2ºC after
which isolates were identified morphologically and
biochemically.
Results: A total of 187 (88.8%) bacterial isolates were
obtained from the swabs (P<0.0017) made up of 55.5%
non-pathogenic isolates, 33.3% pathogenic isolates and
14.2% no bacteria growth. There was significant dif-
ference between pathogenic isolates and no bacterial
growth (P=0.0244). The largest pathogenic isolates
were S. aureus (57.6%) and E. coli (39.4%) whilst Ba-
cillus spp. was the only non-pathogenic isolate. Door
handles of the various wards and theatre had the high-
est total bacterial isolates (25.7%), followed by the
lavatories (24.6%); whereas the lavatories recorded the
most pathogenic isolate (21), followed by taps. There
was no change in S. aureus isolate numbers after clean-
ing whereas E. coli decreased by (26.7%) and Bacillus
spp. increase by (32.7%).
Conclusion: The high percentage of pathogenic iso-
lates of S. aureus and E. coli as well as Bacillus spp. on
fomites at the Volta Regional Hospital indicates a high
potential risk of HAI in the hospital.
