Bacteria Associated with Hospital Handrails in a Tertiary Institution in Nigeria

Background: Hospital acquired infections are serious health issues in the health-care system. These infectious agents are usually drug resistant and complicate patient treatments after diagnosis by physicians.

Aim: The aim of this research was to isolate and identify important bacteria associated with handrails at Braithwaithe Memorial Specialist Hospital (BMSH) hospital, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria as this will assist in solving issues associated with hospital acquired infection in health facilities.

Methods: Ten (10) samples were examined by swabbing the different types of handrails at various wards and inoculating onto different media for isolation and identification of isolated bacteria. In this study, only three types of handrails were investigated.

Results: The study show different prevalence of the four (4) types of bacteria isolated: S. aureus (37.5%), E. coli (31.3%), Streptococcus (18.7%) and Proteus (12.5%). In addition, the different types of hand rails examined were: iron (10), wooden handrails (4) and stainless steel (2).

Conclusion: These data have shown that handrails can serve as a potential source of transmitting pathogenic agents as they harbor pathogens and opportunistic pathogens which may thrive in immunocompromised or immunosuppressed individuals.