Assessment of Susceptibility of Bacteria Isolated from Mobile Phone Headsets to Antibiotics

Abstract

This is a cross-sectional study, carried out during the period from April toNovember, 2014. The study objective was to assess susceptibility of bacteria isolated from mobile phones headsets toantibiotics. The isolated bacteria under assessment were obtained from the Research Laboratory,Sudan University of Science and Technology.Gram's stain and biochemical tests were used to confirm the identification of the isolates. Antibiotic Susceptibility Test was carried out by modified Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method.E-test was done to determine Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) of antimicrobial agents to differentbacterial isolates. The antibiotics used were gentamicin, amoxicillin, ciprofloxacin, Cotrimoxazole,chloramphenicol, oxacillin, cefuroxime, tetracycline, and erythromycin. The results showed that re-identified isolates wereStaphylococcus aureus(6), Staphylococcus epidermidis(2),andKlebsiellapneumoniae(2).The assessment of susceptibility of bacterial isolates to antibiotics revealed thatall 10 isolates were susceptible (100%) to ciprofloxacin, chloramphenicol with MIC range (0.25-0.13µg\ml). Susceptibility to other antibiotics ranged from 00% to 83.3%. All isolates were not susceptible to oxacillin and amoxicillin with MIC (>64µg\ml). All 6/6 S. aureus isolates were susceptible to ciprofloxacin and chloramphenicol, and 5/6 to erythromycin, 4/6 to gentamicin, cotrimoxazole and cefuroxime, and 3/6 to tetracycline. The 2 isolates of S. epidermidisweresusceptible to erythromycin, cefuroxime, gentamicin, and tetracycline, one was susceptible to Cotrimoxazole. Both isolates of K. pneumoniae were susceptible to ciprofloxacin, chloramphenicol, one to tetracycline, Cotrimoxazole, and erythromycin, but all were resistant to gentamicin, cefuroxime. The study concludedthat all isolates recovered from mobile phones headsets were completely susceptible tociprofloxacin, chloramphenicol. Further studies with more bacterial isolates are required to validate the results of this study.