Formiga como vetor de bactérias nosocomiais no Hospital de Clínicas da Universidade Federal de Uberlândia

Abstract

Ants are social insects with a great adaptation capacity which propitiates their dispersion to almost all terrestrial environments. One of these would be the urban environments, where they make nests and cause many losses to the human kind. On this work, a survey of species present in eight sectors of Hospital de Clínicas of Universidade Federal de Uberlândia (HC/UFU) was made, besides verifying the presence of bactéria on ants and evaluating the resistance profile of these ones, confronted to some antimicrobials. The data showed the presence of 11 ant species, in which 5 species were predominant, with Tapinoma melanocephalum present in 70% of the collected samples. lhe amount of rain and temperaturc, together with the environment hygiene conditions directly influenced the number of species and individuais present on the studied sectors. Among the eight sectors, Infectious Molest, Burnt Sector and Emergcncy Room were the ones that presented higher number of ants in situation of high contamination potential. Yet, the Pediatric and Adult ICU (Intensive Care Unit) presented the best structural and hygienic conditions, and consequently, low ant infestation. The results showed that ants are important bactéria vectors and those that were carried by ants present resistance leveis higher than those isolated on the environment. Therefore, erradication of these insects at hospital environments becomes necessary, due to the enormous amount of collected individuais and to the fact of being at places in which they may possibly cause infections.