Bioburden in sleeping environments from Portuguese dwellings

Loading Rates of Dust and Bioburden in Dwellings in an Inland City of Southern Europe

“…Fungal contamination ranged from 1.97 to 35.4 CFU m −2 day −1 in MEA, and from undetectable to 48.8 CFU m −2 day −1 in DG18. These counts are lower than those obtained in previous studies conducted in Lisbon city [23], in French dwellings [22] and in Danish homes [41]. The differences can be due to dissimilar contamination sources, or even environmental variables that can impact the fungal profile indoors [42].…”

“…The differences can be due to dissimilar contamination sources, or even environmental variables that can impact the fungal profile indoors [42]. Additionally, the differences observed between the results of this study and those reported in the literature may also arise from aspects related to seasonality that may have an influence on microbial contamination [23,28,42].…”

“…EDC extracts (0.15 mL) were obtained following the procedures already published [23] and inoculated onto 2% malt extract agar (MEA) with 0.05 g L −1 chloramphenicol media and dichloran glycerol (DG18) agar-based media were used for fungal contamination characterization, while tryptic soy agar (TSA) with 0.2% nystatin was applied for total bacteria assessment, and violet red bile agar (VRBA) for Gram-negative bacteria.…”

“…Indeed, active air sampling is limited by short sampling periods (minutes to hours), representing only a snapshot of bioburden exposure [18]. Electrostatic dust collectors (EDCs) constitute a simple and cost-effective passive sampling method able to characterize bioburden present in settleable dust [3,4,[19][20][21][22][23]. Given their simplicity, low cost, independence from noisy pumps and power supply, possibility of allowing simultaneous sampling in multiple locations, and ability to provide indications of exposure over longer time frames, passive samplers are regarded as a good alternative in indoor air quality and exposure assessment studies [24,25].…”

Microbiological Contamination Assessment in Higher Education Institutes

“…In the case of passive methods, such as the surface swabs used in this study, they allow to characterize the contamination over a longer period of time (after the last cleaning procedure), thus providing a more comprehensive picture of the real exposure [46][47][48][49]. Indeed, they have previously been used in several indoor environments [46,[51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61] generally providing more detailed and complete information regarding fungal species distribution. The use of both sampling methods allows to overcome each method limitation, ensuring a more precise exposure assessment [44].…”