ABSTRACT

The study was carried out to assess the genera of airborne microorganism present in the indoor environment of the nine day-care centers. The microbial quality of nine Day-care centers in Umuahia was accessed by settling plate techniques. They were exposed for a period of 10-15 minutes at each sampling points, using open petri-dishes containing different culture media. The result obtained showed that the bacterial count ranged from 6cfu/m3to 11 8cfu/m3for morning and 142cfu/m3for afternoon session. The fungal count ranged from 3cfu/m3to lOcfu/m3for morning and 1.0cfu/m3to l2cfu/m3for afternoon. The statistical analysis showed that the bacterial load that were measured in all the Day-care centers were not significantly different from each other (P>0.05), whereas the concentration of fungi that were measured in all the Day-care centers were also not significantly different from each other (P>0.05). A total of 10 microorganisms comprising 6 bacteria and 4 fungi were isolated in this study. These bacterial genera were Bacillus species, Micrococcus species, Staphylococcus aureus, Coagulase-Negative, Staphylococcus, Streptococcus species, while the fungal genera included Rhizopus Stolonfer, Aspergillius niger, Cladosporiurn species, Penicilliurn spp. The predominant bacteria in this study were Micrococcus spp Staphylococcus aureus and that of fungi were Aspergillius fumigatus respectively. The low bacteria and fungi load observed during this period may be as a result of proper sanitation and good hygiene in the day-care c2wentres.