Isolation and identification of bacteria causing conjunctivitis

Abstract

The human eye is exposed to multiple types of microorganisms, and eye infections have serious consequences if neglected, as they can lead to blindness. Therefore, the current study was conducted to mitigate the most important bacterial microorganisms causing Bacterial conjunctivitis in the city of Samarra, where 150 samples were collected for this purpose, (130 of patients with eye inflammation after they were clinically diagnosed by a specialist doctor and 20 control), their ages ranged between 1-80 years, of both genders, from April 2022 to January 2023. The results of bacterial culture showed the presence of bacterial growth All samples belonged to Gram-positive it was Staphylococcus aureus bacteria were dominant, with a percentage of 28.57%, followed by Staphylococcus lentus bacteria, where their percentage was 11.42%, Then came the rest of the bacterial isolates, Control samples also gave 15 samples  positive growth, and all samples belonged to Coagulase-negative staphylococci, as they were 5. Isolates of Staphylococcus epidermidis, 3 isolates of Staphylococcus haemolyticus, and two isolates of Staphylococcus hominis, Staphylococcus lenutus, and Staphylococcus warneri. In this study, it was found that there were clear differences in infection between age groups, as the age group of 40-59 years had the highest infection rate, and their infection rate reached 33.33%. Gender and place of residence also had a relationship in the distribution of bacterial infections, as the infection rate in males, was higher than in females, reaching 61%. Likewise, those living in the city had the highest share of infection with eye infections, with the infection rate reaching 76.19%.