Environmental exposure of legionella spp. in cooling systems at selected hospitals in Klang Valley / Muhammad Rushdi Ibrahim

Ibrahim, Muhammad Rushdi (2010) Environmental exposure of legionella spp. in cooling systems at selected hospitals in Klang Valley / Muhammad Rushdi Ibrahim. Degree thesis, Universiti Teknologi MARA ( Kampus Puncak Alam ).

Abstract

This paper describes the environmental exposure of Legionella spp. at three (n=3) selected hospitals in the Klang Valley. The study involves the isolation of Legionella spp. using positive pressure membrane filtration method, and then the calculation of exposure dose. The exposure dose is then plotted onto the satellite map at the sampling location, indicating the environmental exposure to the residential population. The results showed that 20% of the cooling towers in Kuala Lumpur were contaminated; 11 % for Sungai Buloh; and 66.67% of cooling towers in Serdang Hospital was contaminated. The exposure dose ranges from 0.90 cfum3/mUkg/day to 50 cfum3/mUkg/day. There is a significant difference between the bacterial growth for morning and evening sample, due to the evening sample taken on microbiocide treatment day (p= 0.005). Chlorine was used as disinfection method for the cooling water, but there is a significance difference between the concentrations of free chlorine on the sample with the standard concentration based on standard by Ministry of the Environment Singapore (p= 0.00). Statistical analysis also revealed that treatment using microbiocide is significantly associated with the bacterial growth (p= 0.009). Nevertheless, in order to determine the overall environmental exposure, the cooling towers in other buildings and also environmental factors such as weather, wind direction and velocity has to be considered. The low number of Legionnaires' disease is also linked with the formation of anti-Legionella antibodies, but further research is needed to confirm this. As a conclusion, Legionella spp. was isolated in the cooling towers (n=31) of selected hospitals in Klang Valley, with the exposure dose up to 50 cfum3/mUkg/day. Chlorine was used to disinfect the cooling water, but the dose is not up to the referral standard from Singapore.

Metadata

Item Type: Thesis (Degree)
Creators:
Creators
Email / ID Num.
Ibrahim, Muhammad Rushdi
2006841107
Contributors:
Contribution
Name
Email / ID Num.
Thesis advisor
Ahmad, Hashim
UNSPECIFIED
Subjects: Q Science > QR Microbiology
T Technology > TD Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering > Environmental effects of industries and plants
Divisions: Universiti Teknologi MARA, Selangor > Puncak Alam Campus > Faculty of Health Sciences
Programme: Bachelor in Environmental Health and Safety
Keywords: Legionella spp., cooling system
Date: May 2010
URI: https://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/53264
Edit Item
Edit Item

Download

[thumbnail of 53264.PDF] Text
53264.PDF

Download (2MB)

Digital Copy

Digital (fulltext) is available at:

Physical Copy

Physical status and holdings:
Item Status:
Processing

ID Number

53264

Indexing

Statistic

Statistic details