Bacteriological evaluation of indoor air quality of schools in Kirşehir province

In recent years, especially in developed countries, factors such as indoor air quality in the living environment, materials used in buildings and ventilation systems have been taken into account. Since people, especially children, spend most of their time indoors, the effect of indoor air quality on human health becomes more and more important. This work; determination of bacteria concentration (CFU/m³), isolation, identification and investigation of seasonal (fall and spring) distributions in samples taken from indoor air of a total of 33 primary schools in Kırşehir city center and in the villages of the city center. For this purpose, the indoor air of primary school classrooms were sampled twice using the ECO MASS 100 Microbial Air Monitoring System in the fall (September-OctoberNovember-December 2017, January 2018) and spring (February-June 2018) semesters. In this study, samples were taken by placing a 90 mm petri dish containing Plate Count Agar and Nutrient Agar media in the device for bacteria counting and isolation. A total of 451 petri dishes were used for the isolation of bacteria from the indoor air of primary schools, and after repeated cultivation, 180 isolates containing different species were obtained. As a result of the identification of pure cultures of the isolates obtained in the study by MALDI-TOF MS method, both in the fall term and in the spring period they belong to 17 genera (Bacillus, Staphylococcus, Paenibacillus, Enterococcus, Arthrobacter, Micrococcus, Pseudomonas, Kocuria, Lysinibacillus, Acinetobacter, Exiguobacterium, Aerococcus, Clostridium, Corynebacterium, Brevibacillus, Chryseobacterium and Lactobacillus) a total of 48 different species were detected. Among them, Bacillus (16 species) was the genus with the most species diversity. In second place is Staphylococcus (6 species) while it is coming with 4 species, Paenibacillus and Enterococcus (3 species) were determined to follow the genus. Total bacteria values are; While the fall period was 38 to ≥2628 CFU/m3 , this rate was determined as 33 to ≥2628 CFU/m3 in the spring period. In addition, the most diverse Bacillus the mass spectra of the genus MALDI-TOF MS have also been determined.