A BACTERIOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE PALM AMONG MADONNA UNIVERSITY STUDENTS, ELELE CAMPUS

bacteriological study

Abstract

Microorganism can be transferred to the human palms from contaminated surfaces. Contaminated hands can transmit disease to oneself as well as to others. This study was done to isolate bacteria present in palms of students of Madonna University Elele Campus, Rivers State Nigeria. A total of 85 palms were swabbed, samples were taken from randomly selected students males (45%) and females (40%). Out of these 85 samples of palm swabs, 36 isolates were gotten. From the result, the most frequently isolated organism was Staphylococcus aureus20 (55.5%) and the least isolated organism was Salmonella spp 2 (5.5%), other organisms isolated were Klebsiellaspp6(16.6%), Escherichia coli 8(22.2%). There was no significant difference p>0.05 among percentage occurrence among the organism isolated. Also this work shows that the highest number of isolates gotten from the males was 21(58.3%) and 15(41.6%) number of isolates from female students. The result show there was no significant p>0.05 difference among percentage occurrence of organism isolated when compared by gender between the types of organisms isolated and sex distribution of the organisms isolated. The subjects needed to be meticulously educated on need for proper hand hygiene and hand washing practice.