Isolation and Identification of Pathogenic Bacterial Species from Refrigerators in Basrah City, South of Iraq Hassan Zainab Alag1,*, Hateet Rashid Rahim2, Al-Mussawi Abdulameer Abdullah3 1Lecturer, College of Nursing, University of Basrah, Basrah 2Assisstant Professor, College of Nursing, University of Mesan, Mesan 3Professor, College of Nursing, University of Basrah, Basrah, Iraq *Corresponding Author: Zainab Alag Hassan e-mail: drzainabA2018@gmail.com Tel. No: 00964-7718883937
Online published on 23 December, 2019. Abstract Objective To isolate and identificate bacterial species from refrigerators in Basrah city. Method A total of 37 household refrigerators were sampled in Basrah city. With the consent of householders swabs moistened soaked with Buffered Peptone Water were collected from the base, shelves and sides of the refrigerator and were transported to laboratory under chilled conditions (4°C ± 1.0). Each sample collected was plated out on many culture media. Results Citrobacterfreundi was the most frequently isolated pathogen in this study, being recovered from 31.57% of refrigerators. Listeria monocytogenes and Pseudomonas spp. were recovered from 17.55% of refrigerator surfaces, Salmonella spp. from 14.03%. Escherichia coli from 10.63% and Listeriainnocua from 8.77%. Conclusions This study concludes that most of the refrigerators under study were contaminated with some bacterial species and some of these are pathogenic and lead to diseases such as Listeriaand Salmonella. Continuous cleaning and using disinfectant agents reduces bacterial contamination. Top Keywords Isolation, Bacteria, Contamination, Basrah. Top |