POTENTIAL SOURCES OF TRANSMISSION OF HOSPITAL ACQUIRED INFECTIONS IN THE VOLTA REGIONAL HOSPITAL IN GHANA

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.