Incidence of Fungal Aerosols from Selected Crowded Places in Port Harcourt, Nigeria

The role of aerosols in the spread of infectious diseases cannot be overemphasized in the face of increased environmental pollution from different sources. This study aimed at determining the distribution of fungi occurring in the air around human dwellings. The fungal aerosols were randomly collected from five crowded environments (market, church, school, motor park and crowded home) in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria and examined. The sedimentation method was used for the microbiological sampling of air and fungi were identified based on macroscopic and microscopic method. The mean fungal load of the different crowded environments were as follows; market (3.19±0.43 log₁₀ SFU cm⁻² min⁻¹), church (2.96±0.33 log₁₀ SFU cm⁻² min⁻¹), school (3.22±0.29 log₁₀ SFU cm⁻² min⁻¹), motor park (3.25±0.35 log₁₀ SFU cm⁻² min⁻¹) and home (3.04±0.46 log₁₀ SFU cm⁻² min⁻¹), with motor park having the highest and church having the lowest. A total of 16 fungal isolates belonging to twelve (12) genera were identified. They included Aspergillus spp. (31.25%) and Paecilomyces sp., Mucor sp., Fusarium sp., Aspergillus sp., Rhizopus sp., Colletotrichum sp., Cryptococcus sp., Alternaria sp., Cladosporium sp., Chrysosporium sp. and Lophophyton sp. each having a percentage occurrence of 6.25%. Although there was no significant difference (p≥0.05) in the fungal population in the different sampled locations, Motor Park was observed to have the highest percentage occurrence (34.50%) and church the least (9.35%). The percentage occurrence from all sampled sites was in the order motor park>school>market>home>church. The presence of some potential pathogenic fungi such as Aspergillus flavus pose serious public health risks.