BACTERIAL COLONIZATION OF LAPTOP KEYBORDS BELONGING TO CALEB UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

In the technology century, almost everyone has to use computers. The computer itself might be contaminated by microbes and can be transmitted by users. The main objective is to determine the degree of microbial contamination on the laptop keyboards. A total of sixty eight(68) samples were collected from both male (34) and female (34) students using a sterile swab and was bacteriologically examined using different culture media. The culture media used were Mannitol salt agar, Nutrient agar, MacConkey Agar, and Eosine methylene blue agar. Each were being incubated within 24-48 hours. Series of biochemical tests were being used to examine the
organisms and the biochemical tests include catalase test, motility test, urease test, citrate test, indole test, and sugar fermentation test. Staphylococcus aureus tested for 72% infection in both male and female, E.coli 16%, klebsiella pneumoniae 10% and Shigella spp 2% also tested positive for infection. In this study, S. aureus isolates were multidrug resistant with 59% resistance to augmentin, 88% to erythromycin, 64% to Ciprofloxacin, 52% to clotrimazole. Klebsiella pmeumoniae was also multi-drug resistant with 82% resistance to augmentin, 63% to ceftazidime, 55% to cefoxitin. The E. coli isolate had 100% to augmentin, erythromycin, ciprofloxacin,
ceftazidime, tetracycline, gentamicin, cefoxitin and clotrimazole. Ninety nine percent of the questionnaires filled by students indicated that they don’t use their laptops in public or healthcare centre. Computer keyboards of students in Caleb university were found to be contaminated with pathogenic bacterial pathogens. Some of these bacterial isolates were multidrug resistant. Therefore, frequent hand hygiene and disinfection of computer keyboard surfaces is encouraged to minimize the spread of bacterial resistant strains.