European Reviews of Chemical Research

17-21

Authors: Iliyasu A. A. Ibrahim, Hafizah Sani Sulaiman, Sulaiman Maikudi, Habibu Musa

The most traditional and realistic technique to avert the blowout of respiratory contaminations is to wear face masks; quite a few research clusters have established its efficacy against the spread of respiratory viruses before the COVID-19 pandemic. The current study aimed to isolate and identify bacteria from disposable face masks after use in Bauchi state university, Gadau. A total of 100 used face masks were collected from students of the university and subjected to microbiological and biochemical tests in order to isolate and identify the organisms from both the inner and outer surfaces of the used face masks. Most isolated bacterial contamination on both the outside area of the used face masks were Staphylococcus aureus 41.6 %, Escherichia coli 45.8 %, Streptococcus pneumoniae 8.3 % and Streptococcus mutans with 4.1 % but the number of organisms found on the outside were much lower. This study shows that the most abundant bacteria found in used face masks was Escherichia coli with the highest percentage of occurrence. The findings from this study show that bacteria were isolated from both the inner and outer surfaces of all the face masks used for this study, majority of which were Gram positive cocci. Only one-gram negative rod was identified and isolated.