Vol. 7, Issue 12 (2018)

Author(s):
Neelam Rani, Piyush Tomar, PK Kapoor, Renu Gupta and Y Singh

Abstract:
Indoor air quality is becoming an increasingly important issue for occupational and public health aspect. The hygienic conditions of the environment could be determined by microbial air quality which may correlate with the disease occurrence also. The aim of this study was to assess and statistically analyze the microbial air quality of laboratory animal house using active air sampling method. The study was carried out in Disease Free Small Animal House (DFSAH), LUVAS, Hisar for one week in November, 2016 and repeated for one week in December, 2016. Air sampling was carried out in colony areas of guinea pig, rabbit, rat and mice, galleries, kitchen and washing room; exposing media plates for 30 seconds. Then plates were incubated at 37 ⁰C for 24 hr., allowing visible colonies to develop and subsequently counted. The number of visible colonies gives an estimate of the number of colony forming units (CFU)/ft³ of air. From the current study, it could be concluded that there was statistically significant difference in bacterial counts in air samples (n=70) taken at 12PM (4.81±3.58) and at 4PM (2.93±2.10) (p value <0.001). However, there was no statistically significant difference in bacterial counts of air samples taken at Gallery and Guinea pig colony area at different times. Further, one-way ANOVA comparison of microbial air quality of different locations of laboratory animal house showed no statistically significant difference (p value >0.05). This study was an attempt to accurately reflect the difference of microbial air quality at different locations and time. The main purpose was to monitor the integral air quality of DFSAH, LUVAS and suggest areas for improvement of air quality. To ensure better health status and disease prevention in laboratory animals as well as animal handlers, indoor air quality should be monitored.