Abstract

JIMENEZ, Fabiola; GARRO, Laura; RODRIGUEZ, Evelyn  and  ZELEDON, Zenén. Evaluación de la presencia de bacterias en alimentos y en el ambiente de una sección de oncología de un hospital nacional, San José, Costa Rica. ALAN [online]. 2004, vol.54, n.3, pp.303-307. ISSN 0004-0622.

    Evaluation of the presence of bacteria in food and environment of an Oncologycal Service of a National Hospital, San José, Costa Rica. The microbiological quality of 92 samples from the Oncologycal Service of a National Hospital, San José, Costa Rica was evaluated during the months of February to July, 2002. Of these samples, 48 were from salads, refreshments, and fruits and 44 from surfaces, air and hands of the medical personnel. The presence of total and fecal coliforms was determined by the total plate count technique, using Violet Red Bile Agar for the isolation of total and fecal coliforms, Baird-Parker Agar for Staphylococcus aureus, Cetrimide Agar for Pseudomonas and Listeria was enriched in University of Vermont Broth, Fraizer Broth and isolated in Oxford Agar. From the food samples analyzed, 77% were positive for at least one of the parameters studied; the fruits presented the greater contamination (94%) and the cooked salads the minor, even though Listeria was isolated in 13% of them. All tested salads (100%) were positive for fecal coliforms. Pseudomonas and S. aureus were isolated from fruits, raw salads, and refreshments. All the analyzed surfaces, with an exception, were negative for the parameters evaluated. 75% of the hands of the medical personnel were positive for at least one of the parameters evaluated; 25% had total coliforms (2,8x10³ UFC/hand), 13% fecal coliforms (2,4x10³ UFC/ hand), 69% S. aureus (1,3x10³ UFC/hand) and 19% Pseudomonas sp. 115 isolates were randomly selected, and identified using miniaturized tests (API ^®). When comparing these identifications with the 166 isolations done at the Clinical Laboratory of the Hospital from the infected patients of oncology, by means of variance analysis, it was determined that both bacterial populations were statistically similar.

Keywords : Foods; contamination; oncology; nosocomial infection; bacteria; environment.