Bacterial Profile And Antimicrobial Susceptibility Pattern Of Isolates From Nails Of Students Of Michael Okpara University Of Agriculture Umudike, Abia State

ABSTRACT

A total of 100 nail swabs were collected from artificial and natural finger nails of both male and female student of Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike. The finger nails were swabbed in two batches in the morning before lectures and later in the evening after lectures of the same participants respectively and analyzed for bacterial contamination. Antimicrobial susceptibility test was carried out on all isolates. Proteus spp (5.06%), Kiebsiella spp (11.4) and Staphylococcus aureus (10.1 %) were the most common bacteria isolated from artificial nails while Pseudomonas aeruginosa (2.5%), Shigella spp (2.5%) was common bacterial isolated from natural nails. Analysis of the antibiotic susceptibility pattern of the bacterial isolates revealed that those from artificial fingernails were resistant to a good number of the antibiotics used. Staphylococcus aureus isolates were mostly resistant ' all the antibiotics except Ofloxacin. This result indicated that finger nails was a possible reservoir of several bacterial and could be implicated in the spread of multiple drug resistant organisms.