ABSTRACT
Water is an essential element for the functioning of health facilities, but it can be a source of serious infections in case of contamination, especially for the most vulnerable patients. The isolation and antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of well water in hospital environment was carried out using standard microbiological methods. Isolation was done by spread plate method using selective agar, Eosin-methylene-blue (EMB) agar and MacConkey agar. The total coliform count and viable count of the samples were done by pour plate method on MacConkey agar and Nutrient agar plates respectively. The antimicrobial susceptibility of isolates to five (5) antibiotics was done using disc diffusion method. A total of ten isolates made up of 5 genera (Escherichia coli, Klebsiella spp., Proteus spp., Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Shigella spp.) were isolated from well water. Total viable count of the water samples ranged from 1.1 × 103 cfu/ml to 3.0 × 103 cfu/ml and the coliform count of the water samples ranged from 1.6 × 103 CFU/ml to 3.2 × 103 cfu/ml. Susceptibility of isolates ranged from 40% to 60%. Ceftriaxone and Amoxicillin were the highest with 60%, closely followed by Ciprofloxacin and Ampicillin with 50% while susceptibility to tetracycline was the lowest with 40%. These result shows that the sampled well water served as reservoir of bacteria which is of great consequences to public health.
