Journal of Nursing & Care

A Laboratory Study on Pathogenic Fungi Carried by Flowers in an Infectious Disease Ward

Abstract

Jun Liu1, Yu Wang, Liping Zhu, Qiangqiang Zhang, Wenhong Zhang, Lingyun Shao

This article addressed the pathogenic fungus distributions on the flowers which were placed in the infectious disease ward. 10 strains of flowers were randomly chosen from the visitors from 30th November 2009 to 6th January 2010. Samples were collected from different parts of the flowers on day 1 and day 8 from the collection. 76 samples were divided into 2 groups (38 samples each group) which were collected on Day 1 and Day 8. 66 of 76 (86.8%) were pathogenic fungus positive. Monilia (24.5%), demalaceous fungi (14.5%) and Rhodothece sp (13.2%) were the top 3 pathogenic fungus in the 318 positive colonies. In the 33 comparing samples (day 1 and day 8), 6 samples were consistent and 23 were inconsistent (P<0.01). The rest 4 samples were pending. It is not recommended for visitor to bring flowers in the ID ward as there were high risk of pathogenic fungus in the flowers, especially for those patients who were suffering immunosuppressed in the ward.